 In addition to the planned role as a tender for torpedo boats, she was also intended to serve as a test platform for the new self-propelled torpedo. Up to the mid-1870s, the German navy had only experimented with a handful of torpedo ships, all of which were equipped with the old spar torpedo. The ship's design provided the basis for both later German avisos — the Blitz class — and all subsequent light cruisers, but also to numerous foreign designs, such as several classes of French, Italian, and Austrian avisos and torpedo craft.
