Subsystem: Computers

==Subsystem: Computers==
Power Cost: 5 Power per active core per round
Computers control virtually every function of a starship in some ways. They regulate the power flow in the warp drive system, operate the sensors, and help the Tactical officer accurately fire the weapons. Without a working computer system, a starship virtually shuts down. While the Federation has never managed to build a reliable fully sentient computer, starship computers contain such sophisticated artificial intellgence subroutines that they somtimes seem sentient. They can understand, and respond to, ordinary speech, including contextual cues within speach. Crewmembers interface with the computers system via the Library Computer Access and Retrieval System (LCARS), which lets the use graphic interfaces to acces data, modify ship systems and write programs. The LCARS contain the equivlent of trillions upon trillions of pages of text, and more data is added every stardate.
A ship's computer monitors everthying occuring on the ship, including the location of everyone aboard ship based on their communicator badges (the tactical officers can track down anyone aboard, even persons not wearing communicators). When emergencies or crises occur (such as a failure of life support or hull integrity), the computer evacuates the situation and notifies the appropriate personnel. However, that's abotu all the computer can do; it cannot operate the ship for extended periods, or in other extremely rountine circumstances, without crew control. The computer lacks the judgment, intuitation, and emotions which sentient humanoids possess and can apply the complex situtations. It can onyl follow the instructions given it by its programming and the crew.
Starfleet computer use miniature subspace generators to process data at faster than light speeds. They store information and programs in modules of isolinear optical storage chips. Each module holds 144 isolinear chips. Approximately the size of a microscope slide, an isolinear chip holds up to 1.15 kiloquads of data. On large starships, a computer core is cylindrical structure rangeing from about 20to about 100 meters talland 10-15 meters in diamater which holds thousands of modules containing hundreds of thousands of isolinear chips. Rearringing the isolinear chips within the module or installing new ones with specialized programing, can interfer with. alter, or in soem cases enhance computer operations.
Starfleet regulations require any ship above size 4 to have a minimum of two computer cores (and in fact even smaller vessles tend to have at least two.) Vessles of Size 8 and higher must have three computer cores. If the ship has saucer cepteration or multivector attack mode capabilites, each piece of the ship must have it's owne computer core.
In addition to computer core, ships have a network of subprocessors through the ship. These subprocessors help to improve system's operations by handling some of the computational load. They can also provide some redundancy for the compture cores.
Computers cost 5 power per round per computer core. If ship has two or more computer cores, starfleet protocals requires at least two operate at once that way, if service to one is somehow interrupted, the other can instantly and without loss of significant ship fuctions, pick up the computational load.
Inaddation to the main comptuer systems several systems aboard a ship have dedicated comptuer systems. Examples include the navigation computer and tactical computer.
==Bio-Neural Computer System==
Power Cost: 7 per active core per round
Becoming the standard now in most starships the comptuer core has been augmented with a bio-neural computer system. This system which includes bio-neural gel packs instelled throughout the ship, uses organic substances which link with standard computers to create a very powerful information storage and processing device. The Gel packs contain synthetic neural cells in a gelatinous organic medium. These neural cells replace the processers and isolnear chips of the last generation of computers. Bio-Nural comptuer systems reduce time needed by 10%.
Although faster and mopre powerful than standard computers, bio-neural computers are vulnerable to viral infeaction and other attacks to which organic substances are susceptiable too. Infections can slow the system down, or even destory it entiarly. Unlike standard computers which require repairs from engineers when they don't work correctly, bio-neural systems also need a doctor's care when they malfunction.
Standard regulations reguarding the number of comptuer cores per ship and how many must be operational apply to bio computer systems. As code in most desigens a hybrid model of isolnar and gel pack processors is deployed in methoids that ensure redundency and synangery. So that a ship isn't crippled should a nural infaction spreads through out the starship.
Category:Subsystem