So I have a general question... are the people who are writing these things up doing any sort of research into reality? The reason I'm asking is that it makes sense to build a sailing ship, as they are cheap and any world with large body of lakes would most likely have them for pleasure, or some even for merchanting (though unlikely).
However, the ironclad? No, not you should never really encounter one in the future unless that world has NO access to external technology. The reason they existed in the past is because we didn't know any better. But now we do (and conversely, anybody on another planet that got there as a colonist will as well). The ironclad could be sunk by a .50 cal firing armor piercing rounds, let alone a shoulder-fired anti-tank rocket or even a laser rifle. I realize some people think they sound cool, but why would anyone who has access to a hand-held table containing thousands of years of naval tech ever build one??
And then there's the frigate. At TL9 it's woefully underarmed, and actually poorly armed for it's mission compared to a TL8 frigate in reality. Why not model these things on reality? TL8 ships are shifting to ASROC-style launchers for ASW torpedoes. The max range on ASW torps is about 15-20km, the ASROC is able to push that out further. It would probably be a cost and space savings to add that capability to the main missile launcher and that launcher should be a VLS cell-based one and not one with a physical arm(s). The ASROC rounds would then be selected for firing. With the torps removed you could have the missile split into a fore and aft set. The laser also seems rather short-ranged for an energy weapon. If it's purpose is to engage surface targets, then it would be ok, but rather old-school. The preference of combat today is to engage your target beyond visual range, thus you need a ballistic weapon, such as a railgun. You could then bump the range up to 150km. Is this supposed to be patterned after the US LCS, or say a Type 23 or Type 26 from the UK navy? If it's an older-class of frigates the crew size is ok, but if it's the newer class it has WAY too many crew on board. You should be looking at around 50 crew or so, excluding Marines. And where's your small-craft capability? It should have an air component - air/raft using offword imported tech, or at least a smaller launch for boarding and inspections.
