Nicolas de Nicolay Original Confirguration

As initially fitted out the IGS Nicolas de Nicolay (CNS-2005) was designed to conduct spacial phenomena investigations for the Imperial Grand Survey branch of the Imperial Interstellar Scout service. The vessel is a variant of the Leviathan-Class Merchant Cruiser (GTL10) built by Blisten Yards to designs specified by Baraccai Technum, built at Glisten especially for this purpose. The Leviathan Merchant Cruisers were built to cruise independently in undeveloped trade areas, primarily in the Imperial Border regions. They were never designed to be primarily cargo haulers, as their rather limited cargo carrying capacity of 70 dtons makes evident. They were intended to open new markets, carrying sample trade goods in and  potential imports out.

 The  Nicolas de Nicolay and her sister ship IGS Bartholomeu Dias (CNS-2023) were designed with special sensor systems and laboratories in place of the 70 dtons of cargo space of the Merchant Cruisers. Aft, between the fuel pods the vessels had couplings to allow the carriage of two 100 dton Type S Scouts, typically the GTL10 Sulieman-Class Scouts. The standard Leviathan-Class vessels carried a 100-dton shuttle and a 40-dton pinnace. The IGS vessels replaced the shuttle with a second pinnace and used the extra hangar space for a Mobile Exploration Base and an air/raft. Two additional air/rafts are carried aboard the coupled scouts. Two 20-dton Lifeboats completed the embarked craft inventory.
All Variants of the Leviathan-Class were armed with non-standard 700-mm missile tubes. This is the same caliber as the standard drop capsule, and the Leviathans used modified Drop Capsules as emergency personnel escape capsules. Using sabots standard 250-mm missiles could be used, but the system was basically a breech loaded single shot affair, requiring crew to manually reload missiles between firings. Standard turret load out for the six turrets were two 250-MJ Lasers and a Sandcaster in each turret. Due to their primary operating theater outside the Imperium the vessels incorporated modest stealth and modest emission cloaking.