SDF NX143-Class - Experimental

For NationStates; Modeled in DoGa with custom parts created in MetaSequoia and a texture by the Evil Doctor.

----

The various ships within the NX###-Class are each custom designed and manufactured testbeds for new, experimental, or outside technology that would otherwise be deemed too risky to mount and test on one of the Republic's various Research-type starships, such as the Element-Class. In some cases they are barely functional ships that only survive as long as the testing is needed, while in other cases they are more fully-formed vessels with all of the usual technologies expected of a starship. NX###-Class vessels are not formally named though they may carry crew-given nicknames that can vary, in usual Republic fashion, from the obtuse to the obscene.

The NX143-Class is a useful example; Built to house Sunset's sensor-reading's based reproduction of a i'Halalaentariel Quantum Frameshift Drive, it was built with full shipboard services with an eye towards the potential for the drive to fail and the ship to become lost in space. The particular architecture is due to both the primitive (by the standards of something that might be able to send the ship zipping around the galaxy) nature of the prototype drive and the shape of the field created. Standard Printz-Iwamoto Space-Warp Drives are based off the Albecurrie model and thus have something of a standing wave or bubble field geometry while the Quantum Frameshift operates inside a spindle-shape field, though the Hoberman Sphere-shaped vessels of the i'Halalaentariel are able to manipulate that spindle into a near-perfect sphere. Since Republic mastery of the principles is incomplete, the NX143-Class fits within the nose of the spindle while allowing the trailing end room for the not-quite occasional wobble. The Republic's interest in the Quantum Frameshift drive is primarily based on its replication of the useful elements of the Printz-Iwamoto drive; Because the vessel travels at high acceleration very close to Real Space, it allows for here-to-there sensor data to be collected, rather than hopping from point to point.