I believe BSG was at least partially filmed on a real ship.
I recognized at least one piece of standard ship equipment (a 1MC). The 1MC is an internal, one-way communications box, a small panel (about the size of a cigar box) equipped with a microphone, mounted on a bulkhead with about a dozen buttons on it, each labelled for a specific space on the ship. So if you're trying to pass a message to a specific space,(or spaces), you only press those buttons and only the speakers in those spaces are activated.
"Now Reclus, QM3, lay to the bridge."