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Description
Only 3 of these were built, purely to test the concept of the subspace displacement drive. This technology generated a large subspace distortion that displaced the ship to the target coordinates. The drive was based on information from the Cytherians and the experience of Lt Barclay (TNG "The Nth degree"). Though technically successful and extremely fast in transit (Though slipstream came a very close second), the drive had a few limitations:
(1) It took up to thirty minutes to generate the required distortion, something that proved unavoidable without destabilising the distortion and risking a tear in subspace.
(2) It could only jump the ship 20 to 30 thousand light years at a time due to the ships mass (anything over 314.2 tonnes had this limit), also therefore short distance travel was quicker using other warp technologies.
(3) The subspace coils got extremely hot during operation and required a cooldown, so the ship could only make 1 or 2 jumps before it would need to wait for the coils to cool down which took up to an hour.
(4) And finally the drive required knowing the target coordinates. A blind jump could be done, but ran the risk of stranding the ship.
Due to these limitations it was instead decided to use the technology in the same way as the Cytherians, to send out probes. This decision led to these ships being assigned as mini starbases, using their 6 warp field generators arranged in 3 pairs, equidistant from each other to allow for omnidirectional probe launch or moving of the ship if necessary.

Description
Only 3 of these were built, purely to test the concept of the subspace displacement drive. This technology generated a large subspace distortion that displaced the ship to the target coordinates. The drive was based on information from the Cytherians and the experience of Lt Barclay (TNG "The Nth degree"). Though technically successful and extremely fast in transit (Though slipstream came a very close second), the drive had a few limitations:
(1) It took up to thirty minutes to generate the required distortion, something that proved unavoidable without destabilising the distortion and risking a tear in subspace.
(2) It could only jump the ship 20 to 30 thousand light years at a time due to the ships mass (anything over 314.2 tonnes had this limit), also therefore short distance travel was quicker using other warp technologies.
(3) The subspace coils got extremely hot during operation and required a cooldown, so the ship could only make 1 or 2 jumps before it would need to wait for the coils to cool down which took up to an hour.
(4) And finally the drive required knowing the target coordinates. A blind jump could be done, but ran the risk of stranding the ship.
Due to these limitations it was instead decided to use the technology in the same way as the Cytherians, to send out probes. This decision led to these ships being assigned as mini starbases, using their 6 warp field generators arranged in 3 pairs, equidistant from each other to allow for omnidirectional probe launch or moving of the ship if necessary.