Designing a fleet for planetary evacuation

The fleet survives partly because the script gives it unusually useful specialist ships. The proposed evacuation fleet would use large, broadly standardized vessels, perhaps close to Galactica's size. Roughly one-third of their internal volume might be devoted to food, water, air, stores, and hydroponic gardens. Each ship would carry resource-gathering craft, while fighters would intercept attackers at distance so damage never reaches the life-support-heavy refugee vessels. Distributing these capabilities would reduce the chance that one auxiliary loss collapses an essential fleet-wide service.