The Utrek War (which is still going on of course but at the moment looks pretty much finished) is a watershed in space combat techniques and technologies writes Dr Vincent from Space Combat Weekly. The DDS, and to a lesser extent the Dinos, both fielded true internetworking fleet assets and it has proved a huge force equaliser in the face of a traditional monolithic enemy.
Analysts at the DDS have calculated before that in any traditional space battle no more than 50% of the ships at any one time are engaged with the enemy. The new shared datalinking and distributed situational awareness has changed this. Now ships can have their assets (i.e. missiles) used using tactical data from other ships whereas before they wouldn't be in a position to act. This increases asset utilisation beyond an estimated 80% and also submits the enemy to a barrage of incoming ordinance from all directions. The effect in the Third Battle of Remedia Prime, for example, was dramatic. The Utrek outnumbered the DDS yet because of their "traditional" method of fighting over half the ships were not in a position to fight at any one time, yet all these ships were under constant attack from the DDS. That is one of the reasons why the Utrekians suffered huge losses and the DDS very few.
Wireless control and seamless system replacement has also meant DDS and Dino ships are more resilient in combat, in the DDS' case it is called Open Architecture 2.0. In one case a DDS cruiser lost it's sensor array but was able to continue to fight using sensor data immediately sent by nearby ships automatically. In fact the crew did not realise their sensor array was destroyed until after the battle! Another ship was also able to make use of a sister vessel's navigational computer after it's own (and the backup) were destroyed. This once again happened seamlessly. The lack of kilometres of cabling and fibre optics also means that knocking out key systems is a lot harder. The DDS aim to further improve their capabilities by introducing planetary based data centres next year. These will be able to take over some key systems by performing processing of received data and sending in back in an instant (there will be some slight delay in this however but it should ensure ships can at least get out of a combat situation if they lose some key systems such as tactical and navigation).
One new technology that was debuted was virtual crewing using the FIDO system. One ship, thought to be a Terran Sea class, suffered a hull breach near the weapons bay that resulted in the crew having to evacuate. Back-up crew based on Proxima 7 were able to take over their duties using VR technology and datalinking for a few minutes while the breach was fixed and the atmosphere restored. Some minor problems were encountered but these should be ironed out by DDS Research for next time it is needed.
So OA 2.0 and FIDO have largely passed their first test of fire, and they plus internetworking have proven that a smaller flexible force can trounce a large monolithic enemy. That is bad news for other monolithic fleets... like the HCS for example. Especially as the DDS and Dinos are moving on with the next stage : UCVs. These will bring a further dimension to the new space combat reality. The DDS want to be able to head into a battle with plans A to E (at least) all ready and set up and be able to switch between these plans instantly. A DDS fleet source told me, "In future we want to have these options. If the TPMs and Z cannons arn't making the breakthrough we want the swarm attack on the flanks from UCVs to soften them up, then switch back to the barrage, and if that still doesn't work then send in our flank raiding reserves."
The future is exciting and bright for the DDS, and for fleets like the HCS the time to decide to join the revolution is now or maybe be never able to catch up.
