As the Storta-class destroyers are very compact vessels, we will have to try our best to remove as much internal volume as possible. One of the key ways how to free up space is to reduce a crew capacity. This is not something new, however, as many civilian vessels operate with very small crews to save up their internal volume for an additional equipment and cargo.

But we are no civilian vessel - warships like the Amalfi need crew for the damage control. If I would just removed most of my crew now, a combat efficiency of my ship would decrease drastically as there would not be as many crewmen onboard to repair a received damage and bridge disabled systems.

Before I could remove any more crew from my already compact vessel and repurpose their berthing space into an additional equipment, I will have to increase a level of the vessel's automation significantly. If we will manage to pull that off properly, many of the simple tasks can be done by the vessel itself and a small army of industrial automatons. They will also have benefits of a reduced supply consumption, as most of their parts can be stored in an unpressurized compartments to save up a life support and they do not need water, food, comforts or cCardamine.

The automation itself is not as simple, because there is nothing like sentient machines readily available for us. Thus, our vessel cannot be fully automated. My approach to this issue will be rewiring Amalfi's computer network and refitting it with a more powerful hardware. With a greatly increased computing power, we will be able to run a more advanced semi-autonomous software, which should be able - at least in a theory - to monitor vessel's status, propose solutions and direct our robotic workforce during their tasks. Human operators will still be required to check the system and intervene if the system will not be able to solve issues correctly.

By this approach, we will hopefully overcome the limitations of industrial automatons with their limited computing power and sensors. I am aware that installation of all this additional equipment might, or certainly will, compromise our powergrid's stability. A short-term solution will be strengthening current powergrid with installation of additional capacitors, which should be able to cope with power consumption peaks.

Ultimately, there will be need of the powerplant replacement to save up space more effectively, but at this moment I do not even know if it is reasonably possible.

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MATERIAL LIST

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Automation software

• 2,000 Counterfeit software total:
  
• 1,000 - 250 Crew stations (Command, Control, Communication, Redundancy)
  
• 500 - 250 Automatons (Control, Communication)
  
• 500 - Vessel's mainframe to handle all these new functions
  
• 2,000 units delivered to the Ibiza Base at 15/06/828 by Raphael Drake.
  

Automation hardware

• 2,000 Optronics total:
  
• 1,000 - 250 Crew stations (Command, Control, Communication, Redundancy).
  
• 500 - Auxiliary functions - primary computer core.
  
• 500 - Auxiliary functions - twin secondary computer cores.
  
• 2,000 units delivered to the Ibiza Base at 25/06/828 by BCV Louisiana, Bristol C&M.
  
• 1,000 Quantum multiplexors total:
  
• 500 - Main functions - primary computer core.
  
• 500 - Main functions - twin secondary computer cores.
  
• 1,000 units delivered to the Ibiza Base at 25/06/828 by BCV Louisiana, Bristol C&M.
  
• 1,000 Robotics total:
  
• 750 - 250 Crew station automation (Control, Communication, Redundancy).
  
• 250 - Spare parts/Estimated waste.
  
• 1,000 units delivered to the Ibiza Base at 25/06/828 by BCV Louisiana, Bristol C&M.
  

Materials for internal modifications

• 5,000 Basic alloys for bulkheads and compartments modifications.
  
• 5,000 units delivered to the Ibiza Base at 25/06/828 by BCV Louisiana, Bristol C&M.
  
• 3,000 Superconductors for powergrid reinforcement.
  
• 3,000 units delivered to the Ibiza Base at 25/06/828 by BCV Louisiana, Bristol C&M.
  

All the damage caused by our Cretan enemies has been repaired. The MNS Amalfi took a beating and it could have easily been our last battle - a few more damaged systems and the vessel would have been almost unrecoverable.

Since the Amalfi was one step away from being written off completely, I have arranged a replacement of the obsolete armor plates and the older "Cerberuses" for the newer and experimental "Repeaters". Our armor was good enough, but it had been patched and corroded so many times by our travels through gaseous nebulas that its nominal hardness was compromised and we have been forced to replace it with the newer armor plates completely. The same goes for our "Cerberuses" which are still perfectly serviceable, but not as versatile as we need right now.

The work on the Amalfi was much more complicated. When the engineers took the armor off our ship, new panels simply did not fit. This caused more delays as they tried to fit another set of armor that was unable to fit. After a few days of examination, they discovered that after all those years of service, some parts of Amalfi were warped and some parts of her internal structure needed to be replaced.
Once it was done - the new armor plates could be fitted without any issues.

Due to our unfortunate series of encounters, I decided to replace the problematic ECM system with a cloaking device. While this loses the ECM capability, its usefulness in past encounters was questionable and it failed to protect us from torpedoes or missiles.

The cloaking device, on the other hand, will allow us to slip undetected through most tricky situations. Our engineers will have to come up with a plan to fit both the ECM system and the cloaking device to the Amalfi. Once we have both in the hangar, we'll be a proper Maltese recon cruiser.

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CONFIGURATION CHANGES

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• 2x 'Cerberus' heavy battery removed, 2x 'Repeater' experimental heavy battery added.
  
• Remnants of previous 'Grade-6' armor replaced by the new 'Garda-8' armor plating.
  
• 'CM-5 Heavy Countermeasure Dropper' ECM removed, 'Obscura-2' cloaking device added.
  
• Vessel's internal structure restored, preparations for future modifications.
  

I have managed to indirectly sabotage my vessel. The Amalfi is both an outdated and a state-of-the-art vessel. My pursuit of more modern technology forced me to make many compromises in my vessel, but these were not a problem at the time simply because I was able to acquire experimental weapons that overcome these shortcomings. These weapons looked both powerful and versatile.

But then came something unexpected - there was a new technological advance in cruiser armament that included heavy forward fixed weapons. These weapons are downright devastating, and my "repeaters" feel like peashooters compared to these heavy weapons. Many other Maltese Defence Force cruisers were equipped with these new weapons due to their versatility, but my vessel had already been specially modified to accommodate these experimental weapons to save volume inside the hull for my future hangars. Without further extensive modifications, we are left with only one heavy multi-purpose hardpoint.

Since I have already spent the most of my funds and resources on preparing the automation of the vessel - it is too late to change these plans. A design documentation is already complete, the resources, parts and materials are ready and waiting for my allies in the Hispania Imperial to give me final approval.

The Amalfi with its current configuration clearly lacks a heavy firepower. As its weapons are now primarily suited against smaller targets and support roles - our cruiser has been downgraded from a first-class frontline capital ship to a second-class support cruiser. We have lost a lot of prestige and pride. I have lost a lot of prestige and pride. A large number of my experienced crew members are now requesting transfer to other Maltese assets. I have approved them all.

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FUTURE PLANS

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But not all is lost. My ship may have lost some of its teeth and is no longer suitable for a direct combat, but our goal of improving the vessel's capabilities continues. I have purchased a custom-built cruiser-sized jump drive from the Starfliers. Although no real trials have taken place yet, this technology holds promise for our cruiser support missions.

I hope that by combining our theoretical hangars, automation, cloaking equipment and jump drive - the Amalfi will remain a very useful vessel in the Maltese Defence Fleet. The planned automation will probably help to cope with the number of my experienced crew leaving my vessel and command.

Valletta shipyard is our current target - to offload the crew and start the modifications. At the moment, I have no choice but to automate most of my vessels. I will have few loyal crew left to operate my vessel. Let us pray that there are no further complications and that all these modifications work as expected.

The first part of our project has finally begun. As soon as the Amalfi arrived at Valletta shipyard, I gave a goodbye to the most of my crew. They have felt disappointed because our vessel is becoming more of a test bed than a proper warship and I cannot blame them. Until we solve our firepower problem, there will be no glorious battles for the Amalfi. It will be more like long voyages deep into Sirius, dodging long-range sensors and patrols, and moving key personnel and valuable cargo between our installations. I hate to admit it, but for now, we will be a glorified armored personnel carrier and scout.

Valletta's engineers and dockworkers are already removing armor plating from key areas around the ship and are preparing to remove portions of the structure as well to create access points for rebuilding bulkheads and compartments. Fortunately there is almost no wear and tear as the Amalfi has recently undergone structural and armor refurbishment, so all this work is going smoothly.

Once they have access to the interior of the vessel, they will begin removing all of the interior equipment except for the weapons hardpoints, the propulsion unit, and the jumpdrive. The power grid and data lines will be completely removed from our vessel along with all equipment and controls in the crew compartment to make room for our modifications.
These removed parts will be inspected and refitted with new parts supplied by our Bristol partners. My engineers do not foresee any problems with this work as it is simple and straightforward.

I am pleased that we have been able to secure an infrastructure and a labor from Hispania Imperial for these modifications. To dismantle a ship the size of a cruiser like the Amalfi is quite laborious and not the most difficult thing for us to do. We are preparing for the next phase, as my engineers are already checking the plans and fine-tuning the final details in the new compartment and bulkhead layout. I can already see on our plans the large empty area where the new docks will be fitted in the future.

I have sent most of the remaining crew back to their homes on leave, as the Amalfi crew's equipment is to be completely removed. All I can do now is wait, watch and enjoy my little apartment on Valletta, where I have brought some important pieces of furniture from the captain's cabin aboard the Amalfi. I may even visit my family estate back in Malta, although I will probably have to dodge uncomfortable questions about my career. I will see.

We were able to successfully remove most of the Amalfi's systems and structure to reorganize its internal bulkheads and spaces. It was a good idea to try our luck on the Hispania Imperial and not attempt such work in much smaller yards, because without the most of the support ribs and armor bulkheads, the remaining structure of the Amalfi began to twist and warp, so it had to be secured with support beams. Fortunately, this was not a problem for Valletta's crew and they had anticipated similar complications.

Installing the new, more compact bulkheads proved to be more difficult than expected. Since they are designed to save more volume than before, the more and more bulkheads that are added to the ship, the more difficult it becomes to add compartments, hatches and doors.
Valletta's engineers solved this problem by cutting the partition walls into smaller sections and then welding them in place as they settled. We found no problems with this process except that it was more labor intensive.

Given the estimated crew requirements divided by ten, we will install a smaller medical facility and prep room in the citadel while the space saved will be taken up by the new mainframe rooms. The ceiling was lowered from the previous spacious 2.5 meters to 2.2 meters to accommodate all the additional subsystems and their access panels.

The actual electrical wiring, data lines, life support and coolant piping will take up more volume space than we anticipated because although our plans were correct, we forgot about the additional redundancy, so we are duplicating all of these systems for greater damage resistance. These systems will also serve as additional passive protection for the crew.

Unimportant systems and compartments will be on the port and starboard sides of the ship. Crew compartments will be moved to the bow and a few selected areas on the side and stern. The forward section is reserved for enlisted crew and marines, while the more protected compartments are for officers. The captain's quarters are located under the bridge below the armored deck.

However, the large storage area and future hangar are the main weak points, as this is where the internal structure of the vessel is the least solid. Large open spaces have weaker bulkheads and these spaces will be more susceptible to damage propagation and less capable of damage control. The Valletta's chief engineer also predicts vibration problems and the entire space needs to be strengthened with additional support beams to stiffen the entire space.

Valletta is now running a simulation to decide how much reinforcement the hangar and storage area will need. As the compartments and machinery fill up, it is clear that the modified vessel will be less balanced than the regular Stortas. Since there is no room to install ballast tanks for dynamic balancing, the engineers will have to settle for some middle ground and balance our vessel by modifying the armor layout.

Our problems are slowly piling up while the new computer and robotic systems have not yet been installed, and I believe the software setup will be another can of worms. While the hacking software has proven flawless in the lab, setting it up for an environment as complicated as our "warship" will be another matter entirely.

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IN CONCLUSION

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• Tighter space in vessel's citadel than expected due to a necessity of redundancy in vital power lines, data lines, life support and coolant piping.
  
• Structural weakpoints and vibration sources induced by large open compartments situated next to the very rigid and tough citadel. Further structural reinforcements are required.
  
• Balance issues caused by the relocating mass withing the vessel out of its front central part to other parts of the vessel. Further adjustments of the armor plating are required in order to mitigate these issues.
  

The new bulkheads and partitions, new electrical grid, life support and data lines were successfully installed. As we expected and anticipated, crew space in the armored citadel was reduced by 15% as all these new lines were routed through the ceiling or floor.

Valletta engineers reinforced the hangar and storage areas with additional support beams. These modifications should increase the structural integrity of the entire future hangar space. The anticipated vibration problems are expected to be reduced, although not eliminated, by these solutions.

The installation of the mainframe hardware was uneventful. It is estimated that the new quantum multiplexers will increase the computing power of the vessel's computers by a factor of 53. The Amalfi is equipped with one primary mainframe with two smaller backup mainframes for increased computing power and redundancy. These computers are expected to command and control the robotic crew on board and coordinate their activities when needed, especially during damage control and maintenance.

Our main problem has been with counterfeit software. While the software was successfully installed on the Amalfi's mainframes and terminals and a communications link was established - however, the communications nodes were overloaded as we tried to control all of our robots, resulting in several conflicting, delayed, or undelivered commands.
As the rebuild nears completion, my lead engineer has been tasked with debugging these new systems and finding the causes of these issues along with proposing solutions.

Our current level of automation is estimated at 80%, but these initial problems are seriously reducing the combat capability of our vessel. As a result, our vessel will not be fully combat-ready after launch and we will have to spend a longer period of time trying to find solutions to our shortcomings.

Final adjustments and fine-tuning will be made after the shakedown cruise, as we need to measure the vibration and balance issues in flight.

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IN CONCLUSION

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• The power and cooling capacity increased by 15% while the available living space was reduced by 15%. The powergrid is stable within +/- 2.5% tolerances, cooling systems are able to handle all the new equipment and machinery.
  
• Reduced extent of a structural integrity issues around the central hangar area. Cruise speed no longer causes serious vibrations in these areas.
  
• The mainframe hardware increased computing power by factor of 53. The maximum potential of quantum computing is unknown. Counterfeit Software will require additional tuning as the whole communication network is prone to overloads.
  
• The estimated level of an automation 80%, but further tests will be need in order to confirm this estimation or calculate real deviation.
  
• The final adjustments of an armor plating to balance the vessel out will be done after shakedown trials.
  

While my crew and I were recovering on the planet Malta after several long weeks of hardship in the Dark Matter Storm, the technicians and engineers at Valletta Shipyards were in the meantime carrying out a thorough inspection, diagnosis and repair of my destroyer.

At the shipyards, they again carefully removed the plating from the Amalfi and inspected the internal structure. Microcracks were found in the plating handles caused by the ship's unbalance, so at Valletta they evaluated our measured data from the test flight and made the appropriate adjustments to the plating itself, the ship's ballast and replaced the cracked plating handles.

Several of our experts also took advantage of the two months off to perform a complete diagnostic and debug of our robotic network. Although their result is still somewhat far from our theoretical assumptions, the robots now require an estimated one-third of the supervision they used to and in several tests they were able to correctly detect a fault or damage 87% of the time.

The most significant change to my ship was a significant upgrade to its weapon configuration. After evaluation from simulated tests, we decided to order a removal of one of our multi-purpose turrets and replace it with a third pulse cannon. The most significant change, however, was the complete dismantling of our 'Repeaters' and replacing them with more powerful 'Blasters' based on captured Gallic technology.
The actual replacement of the guns was complicated beyond our expectations and instead of a simple refit as the engineers had to work on it for a whole month, including a complete replacement of the gun bed and its redesign for the installation of the 'Blasters'.

My crew and I could not even recognize our Amalfi after the new year. The ship's operation was now quieter and smoother, the subtle vibrations were only noticeable when the boosters were fired, and my ship's combat capability had increased due to the new weapons systems, my ship's balancing, and the improved coordination of the robotic network.

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IN CONCLUSION

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• 2x 'Repeater' and 1x Cruiser turrets removed, 1x 'Pulse' cannon and 2x 'Blaster' turrets installed.
  
• Armor plating and mounts refurbished and ship has been carefully balanced.
  
• Troubleshooting of the robotics network, level of automation increased to 82% and robots are capable of applying the right solution by themselves in 87% of cases.
  
• Minor tweak in ship's interior and readjustment of several interior compartments for better ergonomics.
  
• 4x BW Series X 'Dagger' interceptors have been loaded into our hangar bay for further testing, scouting and vessel's protection.