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The Dominion approach to shipbuilding is akin to their policy regarding those
who man them, the Jem'Hadar - designed to be effective fighters who can
nevertheless be built in the largest possible numbers at the highest possible
rate. Their ships are highly modular in design, allowing them to be built in
sections at the kinds of facilities which would normally only be capable of
constructing shuttlecraft. These sections are then assembled at larger
facilities.
This approach allowed the Dominion to build up the number of ships in the
Alpha Quadrant with amazing speed, and to replace huge losses relatively quicly
once the war was under way. Fortunately, the method is not without its
drawbacks; the presence of many major joints in the body of their ships tends to
lead to weak spots, most especially when those ships are produced under
conditions of great urgency. The interior connections required to unite the
various systems into an integrated whole also tend to overcomplicate the
machinery, leading to lower reliability in peacetime and complicating repairs of
battle damage. Nevertheless, the Dominion war machine was a fearsome one and
many analysts considered it unbeatable even by the combined might of the
Federation, Klingon, and Romulan fleets.
Various forms of information gathering allowed Starfleet to gain a reasonably
accurate picture of the size of the Dominion fleet. There is also a fair
certainty about the losses inflicted during the war, while the capture of at
least two Dominion ships - one reasonably intact, the other in ideal condition -
has allowed Starfleet to get a very good idea of the capabilities of their
ships.
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