It seats four, a Pilot, Weapons Officer, Navigator and a Flight Engineer (fore to aft). Access to rations and emergency supplies is via hatches below the Weapons Officer's flight couch and to the Warp Core between the Navigator and Flight Engineer's flight couches. A small fresher is aft of the cockpit for long duration missions, and flight couches are reclinable for sleep cycles. The canopies over the flight couches may be polarised for opaqueness. The emergency supplies noted above consist of rations, spare O₂ and H₂O tanks, assault phaser pistols with rifle attachments, tricoders, spare communicators and multienvironmental shelters.

The Scorpio class Corvette entered service in 2280, as part of the Federation's response to heightened Klingon aggression. Scorpios do not bear official names, rather Scorpio flights are named after constellations in the system in which they are stationed. Individual corvettes often do bear informal names assigned by their crews, such as Bouncing Betty or Grabthar's Hammer, and sometimes sport colourful nose art. The corvettes are organized into groups consisting of 12 ships operating in 3 flights of 4 ships each. At the present time, there are 15 operational groups with plans for an additional 45. The operational groups are assigned as follows: The 1st, 2nd and 5th Pursuit Groups at Starbase 10; the 3rd, 6th and 7th Pursuit Groups at Starbase 12; the 4th, 8th, and 9th Pursuit Groups at Starbase 20; the 1st Andorian, 10th, and 11th Pursuit Groups at Starbase 27; the 2nd Andorian, and 12th Pursuit Groups at Starbase 15; and the 13th Pursuit Group at Starbase 14. The craft shown is hull number SB-12/3/4 (Starbase 12, 3rd Pursuit Group, Corvette number 4) Grabthar's Hammer, Tellarite Lieutenant S'Ruunt commanding.