by the requirement to have two synchronised fields with a hull in each; the design compromises this dictated hampered ship design since the
Swiftsure pioneered Midspace technology.
By the 2900s it had become possible to have a single hulled ship, leaving the forward drive field lobe empty. At a stroke this removed all need
to synchronise the fields or have any connection between them. The new ships based on this technology would have all systems integrated
within a single hull, simplifying the design process considerably.
The Turgran UCS Askad-Idibas was one of the first Navy vessels to incorporate the new design ethic. The hull, 2,652 metres long,
was contained within a single field lobe.
The Idibas was a state of the art vessel in her time. She incorporated a high degree of exotic materials; her hull armour was composed
of so called "trans-periodic" matter, as was the matter/antimatter mix she used for her weaponry. The former made her hull extremely
tough and durable, while the latter boosted the effectiveness of her weapons significantly. The jacketing on her AMP rounds also
allowed the energy released to be focused forward, further increasing their effectiveness. She was also the first ship to mount heavy AMP
cannon in triple turrets. She was also the first to carry rift generators which allowed cannon to fire rounds between normal space and
midspace. This vastly extended the range of the weapons by allowing them to travel at extremely high FTL velocity.
Indeed the new generation cannon were so long ranged that they threatened to render torpedoes obsolete. To overcome this
problem the Navy ordered a new type of heavy long range torpedo specifically for the Idibas class. These huge weapons - in
themselves almost 130 metres long - were more like miniature spacecraft than anything.
Idibas carried the largest fighter complement of any ship of her time, with forty launch catapults and three landing runways.
Most of the Idibas class were launched with IW prefixes; at first none formed part of the Turgran's contribution to the Coalition Navy.
This attitude was typical of both the Imperium and the Republic at the time; despite the early promise the Coalition Navy had become
largely symbolic by this time in history. That would change later in the century, however, with the re-organisation of the Navies which
would come with the Tain war.
