Dimensional lanebuilder
A dimensional lanebuilder is a special-purpose starship designed to move and navigate through the extradimensional Underspace, and provide safe transit lanes for other ships.
For a ship to be considered a lanebuilder, it requires three traits most normal ships lack: a strengthened hull, a special dimensional field generator, and a superior power plant required to maintain field integrity.
Lanebuilders clear paths by pushing straight into pockets of dimensional space. In cases of especially hard to navigate space-time topography, a lanebuilder can also release a concentrated energy burst to clear a path, although this is a very costly maneuver. Because of the chaotic conditions in Underspace, lanebuilders have a specially designed hull and spatial field generator to direct the transdimensional energy around the vessel. The components of the ship's propulsion system (tachyon shunts, etc.) are at even greater risk of damage than the vessel's hull, so the ability of an lanebulder to propel itself through dimensional barriers and establish a safe transit corridor successfully is essential for its safety.
History
In the earliest days of FTL space exploration, it was quickly realized special ships were needed to navigate extradimensional space. The first probes disappeared into the Underspace without a trace, ending up in wholly unknown locations around the Universe.
The first manned craft to be used as Underspace explorers were small custom vessels built with one or more cockpits. Gradually they developed into a special type of small craft equipped with a powerful spatial field generator. Such craft had no lanebuilding capabilities, but they were light enough to fit through challenging spatial geometry that would destroy larger vessels.
In the late First Age, Orcs and Hemmoians started establishing the first space colonies, using large colonyships carrying thousands of colonists, equipment and raw materials for the new settlement. Colonyships could either be equipped with their own lanebuilding equipment, or would follow in the wake of specifically chartered lanebuilders.
The UO Royal Space Administration was tasked with overseeing lanebuilding operations and maintaining a map record of all known established spaceways in Underspace.
Today
In time, lanebuilder capability was integrated with FTL drives, so a ship traveling in Underspace could create its own transport corridor at a sustainable cost in energy expenditure.
Finally, with the development of the Nexus Drive relying on an altogether different principle of travel, dimensional lanebuilding became obsolete. Today, few such craft are in operation, and are typically only operated for museum purposes.
