To: Core Guildmaster - Printable Version

1) Main bridge section
This is the command center of every Rheinland cruiser. Whole ship is controlled from there. In case of urgent emergency, the Donau class with it's every gadget, including weaponry, is able to be controlled by single person. This section also includes the main computer systems of the vessel and officer cabins. Basically, it offers everything needed for daily life of the officers and the ship commander. Talking about daily routine, even food is being prepared in the lower part of this section, where the ship kitchen is placed. As you can notice, there is a big cannon mounted on top of the bridge section. It is the placement for heavy weaponry, ranging from improved versions of secondary turrets, to antimatter artillery and heavy torpedoes. Seeing a big, bright bolt of plasma (or whatever, depends on the weapon mounted there) flying from right above your head will make you feel like you can rule everything, it is somehow true, because the Donau class is literally flying tank, extremely powerfull, extremely armoured and extremely slow. It is designed for the sole purpose, to rule the battlefields. Another place for heavy weapon is located on the opposite to the command section, on the bottom of the vessel.

2) Secondary bridge section
Rarely used for direct vessel command, the secondary bridge acts mostly like an observation post or in unusual cases, like a command center. There are three big sensor arrays located several meters below it. These sensors, controlled from the secondary bridge, are the eyes and ears of the Donau class cruiser and the RNC-Herschel itself.

3) Docking bay or cargo hold
Three meters thick gate made of high quality Krupp carborundum steel alloy is enclosing the ship's massive cargo hold, or in case of the Herschel, the docking bay for fighters or bombers. However, due to the relatively small size of the Donau class, the docking bay is able to keep only one ship.

4) Power plant
The modern power plant is based on circa one millennium old energetic technology. It's essentially a nuclear reactor working on the base of forced nuclear decay. The most efficient energy source used is MOX, or plutonium. However, the core can also run on pretty much every other transuranium element. Despite the ancient technology procedure, the Donau power plant belongs to the most powerfull energy cores used on today's cruisers.

5) Engine
The engine, powered directly from the nuclear reactor mentioned above, works on similar base. The energy from the main reactor is used for heating up MOX, plutonium, or even far transuranium elements into the state of overheated plasma which is then injected into the engine chamber and compressed by extremely powerful electromagnetic field. This procedure results in a micronuclear explosion. Repeated every tiny fraction of second, thousands of small nuclear blasts acts like a rocket drive. Controlled nuclear reaction results in creation of rare isotopes, mostly of copper and sodium. These radioisotopes, not found in the nature, are then released from the engine chamber in form of much cooler, yet still hot plasma few thousands degrees centigrade above the boiling point of the mentioned elements, resulting in the characteristic green glow typical for all Rheinland vessels. Radioactive fallout created by the MOX intermix chambers is not dangerous to humans, because of the high engine efficiency, very low fuel consumption rate and short half-lifes of the created radioactive isotopes. That means that there is not much nuclear waste produced at all.

::Weapon setup::

::Additional equipment