<Thank you, Leskel; please continue as you were.>
Enorryma assumed a more relaxed posture, her stalk eyes drifting toward the entrance of the control room as she spoke.
<The first differences you will notice between fighters and larger ships are the sound and the inertia. In a fighter, your engine is directly beneath and behind you, and you can hear when the secondary engine engages to compensate for maneuvering. The fighter's singularity engine is significantly smaller than the singularity drives on a larger ship, so while combustion-based engines only exist on large ships as back-up systems and failsafes to counter primary engine failures, on the fighter, the combustion engines are how you do rapid fine maneuvering, with the singularity engine being reserved for gross maneuvers, Z-Space jumps, and peripheral systems like traction, cloaking, and shielding. This means that in a fighter or another small ship, you have to be attentive to the richness of your fuel mixture, and you can actually hear differences in the engine noises based on the fuel richness and the demands you are putting on the combustion engine. In a ship like the
Mirage, or anything larger, however, the engines are functionally silent. This forces you to watch your instruments more carefully for engine diagnostics, if the ship is under multiple stresses like sustaining shield damage and returning fire along with flight and maneuvers. In a large ship, you may fail to notice a problem which would be apparent immediately in your fighter.>
Norry indicated the diagnostic panel of the controls as she spoke.
<Inertia also comes into play: a large ship is much less agile and will either maneuver more slowly or demand more power to maneuver at the same speed. In a fighter, most of the weapons systems are powered by the singularity engine, and the main conflict to balance is between the strength of your shield, the power of your Shredder, and the linear speed of your craft. In a larger ship, being more maneuverable comes at the cost of your shields being temporarily weaker, or your Shredders temporarily being limited for range and power. Dome ships are a major exception, since newer models have dedicated engines for the peripheral systems, separate from the drive engines. Ships of greater mass are more dangerous to take through Z-Space, because they are more likely to have anomalous interactions with dimensional folds. This screen shows the Z-Space topography, since the naked eye can't interpret these frequencies of light.> She pointed out the grid screen, with its strange curves.
<Most of these anomalies are larger than a fighter, so you do not even need this screen on a fighter, and your only real concern is plotting your exit location accurately. The
Mirage is sufficiently massive that the Z-Space topography is directly altered by its presence, so constant attention is necessary to make sure our exit point is still where it was in the moment that it was calculated and plotted. In a combat situation, this ship would need a bare minimum crew of two, because one pilot cannot handle both navigation and weapons systems. In a fighter, navigation is so much less complex that a single pilot can handle both, and even give priority to the weapons systems. Finally, while there are countless other smaller details which make them different, the last two major differences of note are the life support and the controls themselves.>
Norry gestured to the ship's consoles, a mix of old-style joysticks, key screens, and thought-speech interfaces.
<An Andalite fighter ship is designed exclusively for Andalite use, and as a result, it combines a physical joystick with thought-speech commands, intended for simultaneous use. A larger ship may have occasional non-Andalite crew with necessary skills, and so it has multiple methods of interfacing with the ship's computer. Nowhere on a large ship will you find a true full-manual override, because you would need far more limbs than you have to operate the necessary levers. A fighter does have full-manual controls, which you can engage as part of numerous possible emergency situations. The life support systems of a fighter are clearly very limited, designed to protect you from cosmic radiation, heat, cold, and vacuum, and to keep engine fumes out of the ****pit. A ship of this size has to maintain a more complex internal climate including fluid and gas recycling and processing, so the life support systems have their own dedicated section of the control panel. Frequently this section is password protected or calibrated to a limited small group of the crew, for security.>
She stepped away from the life support controls and smiled with her eyes. <There is quite a bit more to it, of course, but those are the main concerns.>
