It is intended to meet a requirement for a mix of "Search & Rescue, Harbor and Assets Protection, Subsea Survey, Exercising Authority and Sovereignty, Anti-Access/Area Denial, Anti-Submarine Warfare and Mine Clearance, and Detection and Disposal.
[1] The multirole ship has positions for role-specific ISO containers that can be swapped to change roles.
A fully enclosed boat deck at roughly the middle of the ship's length opens at both sides to allow gantry cranes to deploy both sides to lower boats to the water.
Depictions of the ship show a single mount for a small calibre gun on the foredeck.
Following the collision and sinking of the Royal Norwegian Navy ship HNoMS Helge Ingstad in November 2018, the repair cost has been estimated at 13 billion Kroner (USD$1.4 billion), nearly three times the cost of the original build, there has been speculation that the Navy would instead invest in another class of ships.