Action Painting held a media briefing with reporters yesterday in which he discussed various issues to do with the DDS space fleet. He said the DDS was looking at a light cruiser design for general duties to fill the gap between heavy cruisers and the forthcoming Panther destroyers. These designs are all optimised for combat he said and the DDS requires a fleet of general purpose ships for long range patrol, science missions and surveying that also can handle themselves in combat. The DDS were now looking at the design and could begin building a light cruiser by 2109.
In other news the DDS fleet is going to lose 3 ships but gain 1. Quasar class cruisers 1218 Kaon and 1219 Pion as well as Solaris II class frigate 3810 Algol have been sold. The Quasars to the Raegris and the Solaris to the Aritans. Terran Sea frigate 3212 Banda Sea has completed trials and will be accepted into service in a few days. The sale of the 2 Quasars was excepted as the DDS only want a fleet of 12 of the type. The price has not been disclosed. The Solaris sale is a surprise as the DDS were not expected to sell the Solaris off until the Rhombus entered service however the Aritans offered an extra 23 million zarks (making 223 million) if the ship be sold now. Its thought the Aritans will buy 3 more of the ships at a later date.
