Vessel Mission Types — Registry Public Matrix (Corporate · Civilian · Military · Exploration · Colonization)

Concord Registry · Technical Publications

Legacy ships (before the rings, not CHC)

— hulls that could reach another star without coupling. Super rare in 2277. Concord has spent decades finding them, buying them, and scrapping them so jump tariffs stay "common sense."

• Colony Drive (CD): 2101–2111 Exodus — megadrive spine + cryo billions; one vector; not gate-rated. Still inbound while ring-era colonies wait with lawyers.
• Long-Range Lane Scout (LRLS): ~2151–2190 — scoop mapper; 90% engine, tiny crew wedge; opened corridors the rings later wore. Class extinct — scrapped after ~2185.
• Legacy independent: Scoop + crack, years between ports, no Concord schedule — almost gone. See Before the Rings (Legends).

Corporate vessels

move assets, liability, and executives who think gravity is optional.

• Corp Courier (CHC I): Encrypted lockers, fast legs, priority queue subscriptions. Manifest says "documents." Cargo is always politics.
• Compliance Platform (CHC II–III): Audit bays, legal staff berths, astral scan suites. Experience corps and pharma giants tour regulators in orbit so the dirt stays off-planet.
• Branded Logistics Hauler (CHC III–IV): Container locks, corporate livery, escort clauses in the contract fine print. The arm's real blood flow.
• Experience Yacht (CHC II–IV): Luxury decks, holo lounges, NDAs as wallpaper. Dermidine-tier PR with better catering than your entire ship budget.
• Finance Tender (CHC I–II): Board-only cabins, hub-to-hub hops. Passengers tip in access, not cred.

Civilian vessels

are what freelancers fly when no one's logo owns the transponder — until the bank does.

• Independent Mid-Transport (CHC II): Patched plating, fusion guts, optional dorsal garden. Bounty sleds, fixer jobs, ramen weeks. Verdigris lives here.
• Short-Haul Liner (CHC II–III): Passenger seats, stewards, baggage drama. Profitable on hub loops; miserable on rim ice.
• Belt Prospector (CHC I): Drill gear, ore bins, guild affiliation stickers. Sublight months are a feature if you're patient or young.
• Family Runabout (CHC 0–I): Comfort pods, no honest cargo hold. Commute toy for people who've never met a yard quote.
• Free Trader Heavy (CHC III): Family business freight — mixed cargo, mixed passengers, mixed morals.

Military vessels

fly under treaty navies and system defense commands — weapons ratings that make civilian CHC look quaint.

• Patrol Cutter (CHC I–II): Customs package, boarding arms, bored crews with good aim. First responder to "who's that unlisted silhouette."
• Escort Frigate (CHC III–IV): Point defense, convoy doctrine, legitimate pirates' worst week. Anagathic moss lanes and other strategic cargo hire these by the hour.
• Fleet Tender (CHC IV–V): Mobile drydock, fuel, parts, morale chapels. Mae'lacan-system doctrine treats these as civilization.
• Assault Lander (CHC II): Marine bays, hot entry profiles. Planetside problems as a service.
• Boarding Pinnace (CHC 0): Child craft on frigates. You don't register it alone — you register the argument.

Exploration vessels

sell patience and sample quarantine.

• Lane Scout (LRLS, Legacy): Pre-ring scoop mapper — extinct; corps scrapped survivors. Not modern Survey Scout.
• Survey Scout (CHC I): Sensor mast, single-system charts, lonely postings — gate-era chart work inside one system.
• Deep Survey Cruiser (CHC II–III): Long bunk, labs, sample isolation. Multi-year contracts for people who read terms.
• Archival Platform (CHC II): Mobile museum / xeno archive. Academic corps pretend it's not spying.
• First-Contact Liaison (CHC II): Neutral paint, diplomatic berths, very careful airlocks.
• Xeno-Biology Tender (CHC I–II): Quarantine pods, med isolation. Outbreak fiction starts here.

Colonization vessels

move populations and the machines that make a world habitable — slowly, expensively, forever.

• Colony Drive (CD, legacy): 2101–2111 Exodus — kilometer-class megadrive, millions to tens of millions in cryo per largest hull; 2–4 billion embarked across the ten-year window; sublight only; still in transit in 2277. Not CHC VI — larger, slower-rated for their launch year, and never gate-coupled.
• Seed Carrier (CHC IV–V): Modular habitat blocks, one-way drops, tender convoys. Corp colonial divisions love the word "seed."
• Generation Ark (CHC VI): Gate-era super-heavy life-support haulers; sublight primary where gates never came — rare now, not the Exodus CD program.
• Terraform Support (CHC III–IV): Atmo processors, absurd fuel budgets, decades of invoices.
• Ag-Module Tug (CHC III): Hydroponics at scale — orchard-ring precursors, food-security politics.
• Workforce Transport (CHC IV): Stack habitats, visa labor, headlines you'd rather avoid.

How types overlap

— insurance and tariffs follow CHC, not manifest poetry.

Table tip

— ask which role, not which slogan.