Like most other corvettes, the Vincent Class WarShip was designed as a patrol vessel and equipped to outgun most pirate vessels. The Vincent was launched in 2432 and replaced several older craft, most notably the Bonaventure and Vigilant. The Vincent remained in use with the SLDF until the Exodus when most of them left with Kerensky. They helped to defend the fleet, patrolling and scouting all the way to the Pentagon Cluster, but when the Clans began to ignore the navy, the Vincents' inability to transport DropShips carrying BattleMechs through a jump doomed most of them to a long sleep in the Brian Caches.
         When the Clans agreed to the Dragoon Compromise, they pulled one of those mothballed Vincents out of a cache and gave her to the Dragoons. Unlike the modern Clan ships, she still sported her Star League hull lines, and could blend in with what they thought existed in the Inner Sphere. Of course the Inner Sphere no longer had any WarShips at all, so the Dragoons mothballed her again and she went back to sleep until the Clan Invasion.
         The Dragoons recovered her after helping the Inner Sphere stop the invasion, and she served as one of the very few mercenary WarShips of her day. In the opening stages of the Word of Blake Jihad, she helped break the Word assault on Northwind and remained there throughout the Jihad, protecting that planet from further Word assaults. The Dragoons gifted it to the Highlanders after the Jihad, and they have taken care of it ever since.
         The Vincent-class has long been praised for its roomy design and "smart modularity" technology that makes the vessel particularly easy to modify and upgrade. The Mars for instance has been heavily upgraded since the Jihad ended to what the Highlanders call a Mk 43. She features a lithium-fusion battery system, and numerous other Clan-designed upgrades like hull-sealing technology. She carries heavier armor, her old capital weapons are replaced by weapons of a heavier caliber, and several banks of naval particle cannons are added. She also sports a large grid of anti-fighter weapons that makes her far more deadly in a fight, and a number of single-occupancy rooms have been built into the inner walls of the main small craft bays to make the pilots and engineers more comfortable.
         Like those of her birth-class, she boasts well-equipped crew quarters, as well as a single 60-meter grav deck, that make flying aboard her a comfortable affair. Her ability to maintain 2 Gs of thrust for extended periods allows her to keep up with most DropShips, and her 3-G burst capability enables her to outmaneuver most WarShips.
         The Mars commands the Highlander fleet to this day, the sole vessel of Old Star League origin flying their flag. She rarely leaves Northwind though where she is constantly escorted by smaller WarShips and DropShips.