I beleive its basically where the consisting information is stored, command station or decoder. This makes possible a lot of consisting features.
here's a detailed explanation:
http://www.tonystrains.com/technews/consisting-guide.htm
You might get additional answers by posting in the DCC sub forum
I am pretty new to model railroading, but I have an MRC Prodigy advance squared and it has an option for old style consisting and advanced consisting. What does each type of consisting do? Are there other options for consisting? I know that consisting means running several locos as one but what does advanced do that old style doesn't, etc? I run DCC so does it have something to do with sound or Function options?