TechMemo:Command Starships
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Star Fleet Engineering
Bureau of Starship and Starcraft Technology
Star Fleet Engineering
Technical Memorandum
Stardate: 170319 (19 March 2005)
RE: Command, Control, and Communications (C3) Starships
Command and control ships have certain key tactical systems entirely duplicated systems for use by an admiral and staff. They have much improved communication systems that can coordinate fleet-scale actions and are focused on high power and secure communications that can overcome jamming over short ranges.
They have spaces that repeat much of what is done in a CIC for a single ship, but but which operate on a fleet scale rather than on the scale of a single ship or tactical squadron. So they are tracking and sorting much more information than a single ship's CIC had available because the fleet commander needs to know as much as possible about the status of any individual unit to as great a certainty as possible while still managing information flow so that he can make operations decisions on the level of the fleet while not micromanaging his commanders.
This requires considerable volume within the hull as well as carrying heavy mass requirements. Fleet command ships, like the command battle cruiser, are not just intended to direct single squadrons of ships in combat. They are intended to coordinate the operations of multiple squadrons. To this end, they have some very specialized systems and a huge excess of computer processing power.
These facilities, are located deep in the hull, carry heavy armor around their chambers, have redundant power backups, redundant computer systems apart from the main computer network, and separate communications arrays from the normal arrays on a battlecruiser.
In RP: These systems seldom actually see direct use. Most role play is done on the level of the single ship or, at most, a single ship with a small tactical squadron of escorts.
