At the time of the initial foundation of the Draco Federation just over six hundred years ago, the ships used by the Federation at the time were no different in capabilities than the Novus Initium Republic’s. They were small vessels with warp drives (larger vessels had sustainable drives to colonize other star systems) and had to rely on star gates once the Federation began to expand to other systems. They only had basic shield systems for defenses and were armed with particle cannons for weapons. Over time, the designs began to become more sophisticated and more powerful, but retained the same offensive and defensive capabilities. Only when the Federation found the avian-like Gafran and the insectoid Zeydra did the Federation’s ships go through a dramatic change in capabilities. The Gafran provided nanomachines that could not only repair systems but ship armor as well. The Zeydra’s advance cybernetics allowed the ships to be operated by an individual, reducing the size of the crew needed to keep the ship operational and running. This pushed the Humans of the Federation to rethink their ship designs and their offensive capabilities to keep up with the new alien technology. Note that while the boney-skinned Bagto also joined the Federation, they did not have any advancements to contribute to the Federation’s ship designs.
The Federation’s military vessels are more advanced in some aspects compared to both the Tenebris Dominion and the Novus Initium Republic. Because of the alien influence in their design, the ships were highly angular and the hulls of the ships are molecularly bonded to the point that there are no seams anywhere on the hull. Nanomachines repair the hull at a rate far faster than the Republic and the shields used by them are also more powerful, though they lack the shield booster technology the Republic currently uses. The primary weapon system used by the Federation and designed by Humans is also advanced as there are no turrets or launchers on the ships. Instead, emitters pour particle-based energy into an electromagnetic sphere (which can hold various types of particles such as plasma or antimatter) and then fire that beam at their target. The emitters of this weapon system are located all over the ship and therefore the ship has no blind spot short of being right next to the hull. It can fire more than one beam at a time but the strength of the beam will diminish. The maximum number of energy beams a ship can fire is four while retaining any significant damaging effect. Also, instead of names for each type of ship, the Federation uses numbers for each model or class of cruiser, battleship and carrier. This trend changed recently with the introduction of the supercarrier and dreadnought.
While the Dominion made initial gains against Federation holdings thanks to the combat capabilities of the Mammoth against the smaller vessels of the Federation, the Federation managed to take out a Mammoth a few years before the Novus Initium Republic discovered the two nations and salvaged the Portal Drive. The Federation was quick to reverse engineer the drive but was also quick to realize that the Portal Drive needed more power than their current line of vessels. The Federation engineers used the Nidhoggur Carrier as a reference and designed a larger supercarrier called the Hel. While the vessel was smaller than the Mammoth in length at 3000 meters, the number of drone fighters and bombers the vessel holds is three times the drone capacity as the Nidhoggur ranging from 480 drone bombers to 960 drone fighters! The vessel is still more than capable of fighting on its own as it retains the particle emitter strips throughout the design.