As always, as tech increases the size of individual components shrinks, but there are more of them.  Increasing complexity in monitoring and trying to wring the last few percent of performance from a given power source at higher tech levels would IMO lead to more interconnects, not less.  Think of the evolution of the internal combustion engine - in the late 19th century, there were only a few feet of wiring in any given vehicle. That has grown to the point now that many cars have miles of wire connecting the various systems - emissions control, engine monitoring & optimization, accessories controls - up to 8 or 9 different systems.   

I've never really bought into the Star Trek conception of engineering spaces, especially on a warship where battle damage is expected and planned for.

Dave
Your 'reality', sir, is lies and balderdash,
and I'm delighted to say that I have no
grasp of it whatsoever.
                      - Baron Munchausen


On Fri, Sep 5, 2014 at 6:20 AM, Jeffrey Schwartz <schwartz.jeffrey@gmail.com> wrote:
I think TL is going to have a _huge_ impact on that.
And I think there's going to be a big difference between military and civvie.

I can see a TL10-12, maybe 13 ship looking very "20th century
submarine-ish" inside... pipes color coded for maintenance, conduits
easy to get to, etc.

TL13,14,15, you've got room temp superconductors. No longer need 3
gauge wire to carry the power load, you can use 22 gauge. No longer
need big conduit to run it in, either - you form the conduit into the
hull matrix to begin with, since it's only going to be about 12mm
around.
Plasma conduit from the fusion reactor(s) to the M-Drive is going to
be formed in as well.
For additional safety, you put a 2mm crystaliron wall panel over the
whole thing, with disconnects at the corners. That way you can still
get to things if you need to, but if battle occurs, you've got a nice
spall sheet to prevent debris from breaking things.  On lower TLs you
can't afford the weight/volume for adding that layer of armor, and the
maintenance hassle for finding the pipe/conduit/etc is a pain. At
TL13+, you put one of the little heads-up displays on, link it to your
hand-comp, and it'll do an Augmented Reality schematic of the stuff
behind the wall, including highlights of pipe temps, power feed
status, etc.
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