The Nano Fighting Ship prototype, known officially as the Alpha 121A, has just entered service. The DDS have revealed some specifications on the new ship which could lead to a new family of warships over the coming decades.
Top speed is listed at 4800ec with wormdrive and 675c using hyperspace. The latter figure has raised some eyebrows as traditionally small ships have lacked great speed because of the massive power requirements which traditionally has meant large reactor arrays (and hence no longer would make the ship that small). Alpha uses a new design of micro-reactor to give a much higher power output than previous designs, that coupled with a very highly optimised hyperspace field plus the ships' small mass enables it to each nearly 700c. The only drawback with the new design is range as it uses up nuclear fuel much faster than normal however the Alpha will have sufficient range for a typical mission in DDS or near neighbour space.
Alpha is equipped with 10 TPM-2 missiles plus a laser cannon said to use elements of the Z5m (though cut down). The new cannon has yet to be named but will be replaced by a multimode version later in the year. Alpha has full shielding which is backed up by EA-X. Active power recycling into weapons is also a future planned upgrade.
