Covenant starship classifications

The Covenant's starship classification system, like most of the hegemony's bureaucracy, is notoriously convoluted in structure. Rather than a unified tree that progressively categorises vessels into more and more distinct groups, they utilise a number of overlaid policies that exist entirely independent of each other. At the time of its fracturing, all starships were organised within four distinct systems.

Orders
Similar to human classification systems but on a more generalised level, Orders are organisational lists that catalogues all starships in the Covenant's ministerial fleets by the niches and fields that they best excel in. It primarily acts as a registry that archives the name, history, and relevant details of all ships commissioned by the Covenant, as well as those manned by the Sangheili and San'Shyuum since long before the Writ of Union. All this information is housed within a Forerunner reliquary known as the Unending Scroll located on High Charity itself. Smaller databases concerning regional units and ministerial fleets may also be backed up at smaller government outposts. While it was not entirely accurate, as transmission lag and bribery of its archivists meant that some ships were created and destroyed without ever being catalogued, it was reliable enough to be used by the High Council in planning naval expansions. Interestingly, many of its subdivisions make no difference between armed military craft and civilian starships, although there are a few that are restricted to the former.

The identified orders are:
 * Attack Ships, small, dedicated military craft too small to be granted a shipmaster's chair.
 * Bellators, which are general-use combat ships.
 * Compulsors, which are tithe-collection vessels that also spread the Covenant's religion.
 * Examiners, mighty ministry craft that lead fleets and search for artifacts.
 * Executioners, which are dedicated warships designed to bring nothing but death and destruction.
 * Guardians, civilian stations and ships that are devoted to the administrative and religious needs of the Holy Ecumene.
 * Procurators, dedicated support ships that fall outside of the militant ministries.
 * Vestiges, obsolete starships that no longer have a use in the Covenant.

Role Designators
In addition to the major classifications in which the Covenant fleet is categorized, each individual type of starship has a role designation system which outlines what tasks they are designed to fulfil. These are divided between their primary, secondary, and tertiary roles, with a corresponding letter used to distinguish them. The only starships that did not receive such a code in the Covenant are Vestiges, as they were designed before the system even existed as a concept. With the exception of some Covenant remnants still inheriting their bureaucracy, this has fallen from use in most Covenant successor-states.

There are a few rules that must be taken into consideration. Doubling up on letters signify that a ship is specialized towards that specific designator, and is therefore far more capable than other ships in their respective group. Those that are only as capable as their peers, but are not versatile enough to fulfil another role, may drop a slot, although this comes with a stigma of the ships being cheap and poorly designed in their operator's eyes. Finally, Salvation-class vessels invert the system, with the most powerful Covenant ships featuring it in their tertiary slot instead.
 * A - Anointed: This ship is capable of pursuing objectives without the aid of a fleet, carrying the necessary endurance and equipment to do so.
 * C - Contrition: This is a multipurpose ship of the line, where it operates within a standard fleet formation and require support from other vessels within their unit. As a result, they tend to form the bulk of the Covenant's forces.
 * D - Divinity: This ship has support functions, such as carrying fighters into battle or disrupting opponents with electronic warfare.
 * O - Ordained: This ship is not built to standard, being upgraded with a Forerunner artifact.
 * P - Piety: This ship is used for patrol, either escorting larger spacecraft or independently patrolling the spacelanes.
 * R - Reverence: This ship is used for reconnaissance, and has the equipment needed to search and unearth Forerunner artifacts.
 * S - Salvation: This denotes the ship is a dedicated warship and is suitable for siege operations. They are typically, though not always, armed with at least one energy projector.
 * T - Tenet: This denotes that the ship class is not intended for mass-production, and is instead only built in small quantities.
 * V - Virtue: This denotes a ship that is designed to support ground forces, either directly as aerial artillery or by providing support capabilities.
 * X - : This ship is not capable of faster-than-light transit, although it is capable of exoatmospheric travel.

External Credit

 * Ajax 013 - for co-writing and concepting a number of Order groups and role designators.