Tactical Operating Environment (TOE)

The Tactical Operating Envrionment (TOE) is the area of space around the vessel that can be monitored and within which weapons can be effective. Ensuring that as much knowledge as possible is mainatiend on the status of the TOE is one of the most crucial functions aboard the vessel.

The TOE grid provides a realtime representation of every tracked object within the TOE. Anything smaller than an astronomical object (such as a star, pllanet or moon) must be detected before it can be tracked. At the scale of the TOE, which has an approximate radius of 15 million kilometres, detection involves isolating the electromagnetic emissions of an object (such as another ship) from the background radiation of space. This is acheived using Electro-Magnetic Direction and Ranging (EMDAR), a passive sensor technology that detects emissions along the EM spectrum to identify and track other vessels.