Interplanetary Superiority
Despite that almost every armed spacecraft not designed exclusively to function in an orbital environment will, at some point, find itself traversing interplanetary space battles in the vast expanses of empty space that exist between planets or between planets and artificial habitats or other objects of interest are incredibly rare. By and large this absence of combat is due to a combination of two points:
1. There is very rarely anything of value or of strategic importance located in interplanetary space.
2. The vast distances involved in interplanetary travel means that it is generally unlikely for any two parties to encounter eachother, even if one party is making a concerted effort to intercept the other.
Traditionally this has meant that attempting to achieve control over any region of interplanetary space was both extremely difficult and not particularly useful. However, as the level of industrialisation in space increases so does the number of valuable items and locations in interplanetary space which in turn infers some tactical or even strategic value to some regions of interplanetary space or at least to the ability to restrict or prevent transit though said regions. Craft designed to be capable of preventing hostile craft from traversing regions of interplanetary or to intercept craft or even fleets of craft in transit are referred to as Interplanetary Superiority craft.
Indefatigable-Type Interplanetary Superiority Cruiser
The AANC's solution to the problem of controling large regions of empty space is the Indefatigable type; the largest class of armed spaceship ever constructed by the AANC at its time of introduction. The Indefatigable type is a huge ship designed to be able to operate unsupported in regions of relatively empty space surrounding some object of strategic or tactical significance and to be able to detect and intercept threats regardless of the nature of the threat with its array of powerful sensors and long ranged weaponry.The armamment of the Indefatigable type consists of two "light" nuclear munitions launchers, two large banks of guided missile tubes, two 45mm repeating guns and a single ultra-high energy laser cannon. Despite the incredible destructive power of the Indefatigable type the cost to produce one means that the value of each ship is immense, this, coupled with the inherent difficulties of actually achieving superiority over a region of interplanetary space means that rather than being used in its intended role where it might be only of marginal usefulness and where it would certainly be quite vulnerable to a directed attack or unexpected accident, it is more commonly used either as a portable battlestation or as a wrecking ball to defeat an actual battlestations as part of a larger fleet.