Star Trek: Armada III begins with the first stirrings of the Dominion War and allows players to take command of five unique factions, the United Federation of Planets, the Klingon Empire, the Romulan Star Empire, the Cardassian Union/Dominion Alliance, and the Borg Collective. Explore strange new worlds, seek out new life and new civilizations, and boldly go where no one has gone before.
Small and ugly, the Lanora-class is obviously based on the frame of the Talon-class scout ship, and holds the majority of its cousin's profile. The lack of aesthetic care in its design, so common among other Romulan ships, is due to its purely pragmatic and less-than-glamorous role in the Romulan fleet - the Lanora is little more than a test-bed for new Romulan technologies, being used to trial everything from new sensors, engines and cloaking devices, to new, improved plasma-conduits. This ensures that, should a new component be somehow faulty or sub-optimal, its effects, no matter how disastrous, are restricted to a small, unimportant vessel crewed by mere technicians and commanded by junior officers. The loss of a Lanora testing ship is not a great one to the Empire.
The Lanora's interior reflects its cobbled together nature - despite already being cramped, the Lanora's interior is further cluttered with testing equipment and spare components. In times of peace the Lanora is often beneath the notice of superior Romulan commanders, viewing such an obviously inferior ship as the domain of mechanics and officers with dead-end careers.
After the disastrous Battle of the Omarian Nebula, however, the Imperial Navy has been forced to appreciate the usefulness of large numbers of smaller craft, which can overwhelm even the mighty warbirds of the Romulan fleet. With the Empire deploying its own sizeable force of strike craft in 2372, the Lanora has been refitted with light disruptor cannons specially designed to track and destroy enemy fighters and bombers. Possessing the speed and manoeuvrability of the Talon scout the Lanora is set to fill this role well, and tests have revealed that she performs adequately.
While still far from the pride of the fleet, the Lanora finally has a militarily useful role - something their frustrated commanding officers find refreshing indeed.