The TL11 Fusion plant is replaced by a TL13 design. The spare space is taken up by 151.2MWH of batteries that can charge the jump drive for jump 3 in one hour whilst the power plant is providing full manoeuver. A drive and neutrino masking system has also been added to allow the ship to look like it isn't using any power when it is. Finally the replacement power system has been carefully designed to appear to be the original power plant to all inspection short of an annual maintenance.

The TL13 power plant no longer needs a separate deuterium fuel supply (since it can use normal hydrogen). The deuterium fuel tank has been reduced to a token volume and the remainder of the space conceals a nuclear damper system intended to further confuse any inspection sensors used within the ship and also a fully up to date fibre optic computer system that reduces the required crew numbers. The original computer system has been retained but is used to run a sophisticated anti-hijack/anti-piracy system and also to allow advanced real space manoeuvre whilst the main system works on jumpspace navigation. It also forms a convienient backup, although only capable of supporting Jump 2 operations.

Anyone looking at the cargo bay will see that someone has replaced part of it with a backup jump 1 drive, a fuel purification plant and two additional HEPlaR drives. What is left is full of 40dT of demountable fuel tank. So it looks like the cargo space is down to 36dT (with fuel tank demounted). However the fuel tank isn't demountable. (Which doesn't matter, since the cargo door isn't a cargo door!) It is part of the regular fuel system and can be used directly. This is important because the backup jump drive isn't a backup jump drive - it is actually the other half of the Jump 4 drive that is fitted to this ship. Even the purification plant is not what it seems, although it can purify fuel (96 hours for 40dT), its primary purpose is to allow a "standard" Jump 2 drive to meet the highest Jump 4 drive safety operations demanded by the scout service. The result is a reduction in the risk of early jumpspace entry. It is estimated that entry at 90diameters should be perfectly safe, although not recomended in normal operations.

The four small passenger staterooms had a convenient external wall, so these have been converted into two turrets. One holds a point defence triple laser turret - which can actually fire for five minutes from a self contained battery power supply. The other holds a sandcaster which provides AV:175 - enough to stop any civilian or military laser arrays. The carfule observer will notice that this leaves 2dT unused. Well, whilst we guarantee that no scanner will notice it, we have managed to fit a low berth and 14m3 of concealed storage.

The sensor suite has been significantly upgraded (PEMS 12.5 [1.6mkm] to PEMS 13 [5mkm] & LIDAR 14 [200kkm]) to support the weapons system and spot potential problems earlier. Plus a 1,000AU radio jammer and a Passive Jammer 13 have been added. Normally hiding these would be difficult due to the requirement to add the surface features. However careful design has allowed these to be disguised as the now defunct cargo door.

The Grav compensation system might look TL11, but is actually TL13 and 2G instead of 1G - important when the lack of cargo means a reduced mass and thus 3.7G performance.

Of course this isn't actually a conversion (or even a variant), it is an entirely new build. However is it intended to look like a few minor changes to any observer.

Unlike the original design, the Penny Blue is not subject to any volume production discount.