Abstract Emergent power and automation technologies provide new opportunities and challenges for multi-disciplinary ship design. In particular, these dynamically interdependent systems require dependable, fault-tolerant control to efficiently manage limited resources and to respond to casualty conditions. Design of an electric warship engineering and damage control system of systems is considered as an illustrative example. In this context, cost and survivability can be considered as either deterministic or probabilistic independent variables. In the stochastic formulation, design robustness is defined with respect to uncertainties including technology readiness, mission creep, and operational environment.