DDS Research update

Dr Forbidden gave a briefing to journalists at DDS Research before the unit shut down for the holidays. He gave a progress report on some of the projects DDS Research have been working on :

• EA-X - field trials of the energy absorbant layer have been successful. Two Panthers have been fitted with EA-X over the last few months. The layer, which is applied as a paste to the exterior of a ship and can help absorb the energy from enemy beam weapon fire, will be applied to new build Panther/Independance and Solaris III destroyers from the new year. Other ships will follow at a later date. DDS Research is now working on EA-X 2.0 which will allow for absorbed energy to be recycled into a ship's own weapon ships. In effect an enemy's weapons can be fired back at him.
• DAC - Distributed Adaptive Computing has been fitted to Isometric ILU frigates since the Autumn. The first new build ship to have DAC will be the Independance class though Panther will likely receive it with it's next update. DAC allows for damaged systems to be diverted to other computer systems seamlessly and automatically.
• IWC - Info-Warfare Centres are now being rolled out across the fleet but DDS Research is now looking into adding offensive infoweapons to the IWC arsenal. Early tests with offensive computer viruses have been promising.
• AAPEP - this is a blanket heading for a number of projects looking into improving the carious aspects of traditional propulsion to act as a stop gap before the development of worm drive. One project, which is looking into adaptive hyperspace field optimisation has been promising and could allow speed increases of around 1.3% in some conditions though it unlikely to be applied to a production ship for some time.
• Level 4 Cloak - early tests with the new more secure cloaking system were unpleasant for crews with projectile vomiting and explosive anal discharges the result on crews by the energy fields generated by the cloaking device. New tests will take place next year, Team Redjec have been volunteered to run the tests (WHAT?! - TR)