The Neu Swabian League is one of the four major powers of human space. It is mostly made up of the old Germanic nations that stayed together after the split of the EU in 2101. It is closely allied with the NAC, and the old rivalries with the FSE often break out into war.
The core NSL worlds cover a small volume of space, and are densely packed making them easy to defend. A few outer colonies are generally only seriously threatened by raider and pirate groups, allowing the NSL navy to leave it to their older fleet vessels to protect, providing orbital support to the army.
The ship designs for the NSL given here span 3 generations of fleets. The first generation use the rules from FT2 and More Thrust. The 2nd generation use the Fleet Book rules, and the 3rd generation use the new style models with the Fleet Book rules.
NSL fleet design doctrine has always been heavily armoured ships, with traditionally fighters used in a defensive role against enemy fighters. There has also been a view of building specialist ships, with some vessels foregoing defensive systems entirely in order to pack more offensive weaponry. Such ships are never fielded alone, but alongside either escort cruisers or with a fighter shield.
All these designs are completely unofficial.
1st Generation
The 1st generation of NSL designs given here are for FTv2, and use a different design system to all the other ship designs.
They also used my own rules for armour, since FTv2 didn't have any armour rules.
2nd Generation
The 2nd generation of designs are the original fleet redone for the Fleet Book design rules (FTv2.5). They use the original NSL models, and assume a lower level of technology that is possible.
3rd Generation
The 3rd generation of the fleet uses the new models with the expanded Fleet Book rules (which includes some semi-unofficial extensions).
Being one of the major nations, 3rd gen NSL ships have a special feature of having only 3 rows of hull boxes, reducing the number of critical hits they receive.