The head of DDS Research, Dr Forbidden, has kindly taken time out from his hectic schedule to update us on some key new technologies DDS Research is working on and will be rolled out over the next few years.
EA-X
EA-X is a new energy absorbent material which will be covering our ships within the next few years. It acts as a final line of defence, being able to absorb the energy from a medium power energy weapon giving ships what could be a vital few extra seconds to re-establish their shields or escape. EA-X will, in a later development, also collect expelled energy during normal operation and recycle the energy back into the ship's powergrid. This will allow ships to reduce their reactor bank load thus saving fuel and wear and tear. It also could assist in the efficiency of cloaking devices as energy leak is usually the main reason for cloaking devices to fail to hide a ship from the enemy.
Distributed Adaptive Computing (DAC)
DAC will be the basis for the next generation of computing aboard DDS ships. DAC allows computer resources to adapt to need seamlessly. Why? So if some computers are damaged or have failed then other computers can take over their duties. This could be vital in a battle situation where, even if you have duplication, you can lose key systems. With DAC a ship could suffer 80% damage to it's computers but still have all key systems still operate, albiet at a lesser level of service. DAC will be part of Open Architecture 4.0.
Combat Wear 2.0
During the Utrek War we introduced protective goggles and jackets for ship's crews. The goggles, known as IFG, have the capability to relay information real-time to the wearer using a head-up display. The next generation of IFG will be smaller and less obtusive and will overlay virtual additional information in real-time to what the wearer is seeing. An example is if the wearer is looking for fire control equipment, the IFG will overlay on what he sees status information about the equipment he is looking at. This builds on IFG-DUPLEX which we introduced earlier this year and has proven to be highly useful.
The next version of the flak jacket will also relay medical information on the wearer back to the ship's medical centre in real-time.
Passive sensors
Within 18 months passive sensors will be good enough to be the primary system thus greatly adding to the stealth of our ships. We have put a huge effort into passive sensors recently and we now are way ahead of our competitors on this. Datalinking from other sources and advanced sensor filtering will also allow for an unrivalled tactical view.
Future weapon systems
Of course we all know about TPM-2 and Zip so i won't talk about them. However the DDS are expanding their portfolio of weapons thanks to help from our allies. Vosun-Voth anti-matter weapons for example will be fitted to some ships as an optional add-on depending on tactical need. We are also looking at Bolitic info-weapons after some experience at the sharp end from them. The DDS are very good at learning from our enemies and adapting. Non-lethal weapons are something we are lacking in, its not always politically expedient to use a TPM! We are investing in info-warfare heavily, as its also the best way to formulate our own defence against it.
