Defensive pods

Somtaaw wrote:If I have to go quote diving through this whole thread I will, but I'll point out that you're the one absolutely stuck on pods that:
a) fit standard rails, only twice as many as standard pods

From the very start of the thread, the position regarding fitting standard rails and having the contours like a standard pod WAS, IS and WILL BE, NICE TO HAVE, not a requirement. Go check the very first post.
I have mentioned that these defensive pods would be mostly used by lighter combatants AGAIN and AGAIN and AGAIN in this thread. Since when has lighter combatants become predominantly pod-layers?

b) accept that trading out entire pods of shipkillers for these defense pods is not only a good trade, but should be done for even SDP's

Why not? If the pods=drone's performance is in the same level as Lorelei platforms against SLN missiles, why use more expensive and scarce platform when facing less capable missiles?

c) don't seem to understand that tractoring pods to the ship gives the pods a week lifespan, based on how long the Mesa/TIY pods were designed to last at Monica, and they don't have all the bells and whistles RMN pods do (so arguably, the RMN pods even with fusion would last less than a week)

You seem to have tunnel vision regarding what is and what is not possible. If you give the specs to engineers, they can find ways to do it, even if its bolting the damned things to the hull like what the Andermani did. I sincerely doubt that with all the advanced technology the RMN has, they wouldn't be able to put in a magnetic clamp on the thing. I don't know why it would be difficult to have a mode of power reception to keep the mag clamps running instead of starting up the pod's fusion plant. Hell, even a dumb AI can understand that the power it is being given is not enough to power up the plant and its only possible use is for the clamp.

By those three points you have been making sir, that means you are indeed advocating podlayers should have these pods. You also have been unwilling to accept that more than just myself, have pointed out these pods are irrelevant.

Your 3 points are:
1) wrong understanding of what is being proposed
2) believe old tech is terrible even when its not
3) lack imagination on the engineering capabilities of people who can build things that get things that go up to an appreciable speed of light, can trigger fusion explosions and time the gravitic lenses to channel said explosion and have the lasing rods aligned so as to hit a ship 30,000 KMs away with ALL those things happening in a split second. I don't know why finding ways to get a box to stick to a ship's hull for a time is such a huge undertaking in your thinking.

Page 4:

Rakhmamort wrote:As I said, it's just engineering. I don't know how big the pod's propulsion equipment should be but I believe RC drive modules would be good enough for the defensive pod. The pod does not need to have very high acceleration, just fast enough to get into position and maintain formation with the ship/s it is defending.

You were advocating your "defense" pods, should not only be carrying Dazzlers and decoys, but advocating they should also have their own impellers to keep up with ships on their own.

Maxx from Bu9 addressed that point:
"so these half-pods will absolutely need to be launched from pod bays."

Why? They are pods, they can be limpeted to the hull, tractored or towed.

You addressed that point as irrelevant, someone else can make it work on page 5

I have yet to see a reason why it cannot be done. Even David does not say it cannot be done, there's just not enough reason for expending the effort.
http://infodump.thefifthimperium.com/en ... gton/176/1

Here you are saying a podlayer can almost magically change loadouts based on what they're about to fight, whenever they want. Based on Shadow of Freedom, the Hexapuma went around a month without the missiles it fired in Nuncio until it got to an ammunition ship.

I said that? Choosing half pods when you are deciding what pods to bring in your patrol or deployment is MAGICALLY changing your load-outs? When and where can tac officers make that decision? While away from the base? Are there half pods or full pods lying around everywhere? Why aren't the enemy fleets dropping their weak-assed pods with the Apollo pods they will find on their way to their target?

If you want to argue, don't use your wild interpretations of what I said. My statements are very clear. I have stuck to the topic I am proposing the entire time and you have been going wildly off tangent putting words in my mouth and inventing scenarios that are not even related with the topic.

Later on in that same page, you ridiculed that light ships would carry many EW drones at all. On Basilisk Station, Honor took a LIGHT CRUISER up against the Sirius, which was later rated at a minimum heavy cruiser, if not battlecruiser, and had upwards of 3 decoys per broadside. Decoys are the same as EW drones, they both serve to lure missiles away from the launch ship.

ARE YOU EVEN READING MY POSTS? On Basilisk Station, the missile environment is pathetic compared to what we are seeing in current combat and those 3 drones per broadside were almost not enough even then. What more would current missile combat do to the survivability of these 3 drones per broadside of yours?

During Honor Among Enemies, the decoy drones the Wayfarer launched to mimic the Artemis were both huge, and devoured power that they could only last 30 minutes each, this being a time prior to widespread Ghost Rider fusion decoys which would still only last an hour or two, as per evidence in the Battle of Elric circa Ashes of Victory.

How long do battles last in the current combat environment? Manticore's home fleet was gone in minutes. But that one is a battle of heavies. The battle of torch is a battle of light units, how long did it last? Minutes again. Less than 2 hours even if you count the time the Mesan ex-SLN mercs dropped into the system. So why is endurance a problem for you when the pod-drones are actually meant to be destroyed by the enemy if it does its intended job?

Here you are ignoring the power issue of your pods, after saying these pods will have full up Dazzlers which means fusion power but in the same post just prior:

What power issues? Your standard flat pack can fire up 14 Mk-16 based full powered Dazzlers and you have a problem with a half pod powering up 4? And it has all those space from 3 Mk-16s missiles that are 'non-existent'. 3 whole missiles with fusion plants of their own plus their launchers. From the image of the flatpack, the full pod's fusion reactor isn't taking up the space of 1 missile, much less 3. Why can't engineers use that space to increase the size and endurance of the half pod's plant?

As for the shape of the half pod, go cut it in half. It's a long rectangular box. Very very easy to 'reshape' so impeller rings can be placed. You can even use the nodes of one of the 'missing' missiles there. I don't know if you need bigger ones because the pod is larger but the pod isn't going to accelerate at 92,000kps, so I don't see a huge space issue regarding node size, after all, 3 missing missiles = 3 impeller rings.

Here you are saying they have to be rolled, or should be rolled early, which means their fusion cores are active which gives them an absolute maximum life endurance before they expire,

Because the scenario that was being proposed was 2 minutes worth of pods at the head of the rails during an ambush. I pointed out that nobody would do that and if somebody was going to put defensive pods at the head of the rails, it would be at most 1 or 2 patterns which means 12 or 24 drones, out in less than half a minute and protecting the ship from the ambushing ships.

Get the context of the post before using it as a counter argument.

or get proximity killed (another concept you seem to have understanding... it's handwavium plot that irrelevant to the shipkillers attacking anywhere from 50,000 km away attacking the ship, that same nuclear explosion will EMP disable any and all pods even remotely nearby. Plot and author say this is so, so you denying it like you have later in this thread, doesnt change that)

Your EMP proximity kill assumption has already been answered in your thread.

kzt wrote:There is the set of things that makes sense in the Honorverse and the set of things that David has written about the Honorverse. There is not a complete overlap. Don't think too hard about these sorts of things.

For example, the sensors on a MDM used to find the target fleet are grav sensors, which should not even detect a nuclear explosion, much less be blinded or damaged by it. Essentially the story describes Haven as laying smoke against radar directed gunnery.

Example 2, there is no real EMP in deep space, at least of the sort that people imagine. So the only way you get "proximity kills" is getting the warhead really, really close. Like tens of kms close, AKA contact nuke range.

It is what it is, and it isn't a physics text.

You can also read about EMP Myths and Facts here: http://www.futurescience.com/emp/emp-myths.html

"Myth: A nuclear weapon detonated in an airplane at maximum cruising altitude would cause an EMP.

Fact: It would cause an EMP, but it wouldn't be very strong compared with nuclear weapons detonated at other altitudes unless it were a special military spy plane flying at an extremely high altitude. At normal jet aircraft maximum cruising altitudes, a nuclear weapon would do much less damage, from any effects, than a weapon detonated either near the ground or in space. (The EMP would be minimal because electron currents would radiate pretty much equally in all directions, each direction tending to cancel another out. At much higher altitudes, in the near-space region, the currents would radiate mostly downward due to the relative lack of air in the upward direction. Only gamma radiation would travel upward, but it would not collide with electron-containing atoms, and so would just disperse.)"

And then my final point for now...

You want these pods to be a "low-tech" defense option for the Grand Alliance to use, without using all their "flashy" technology.

Except let's actually look at how everything gets used:

FTL comms? Ghost Rider.
Hermes buoys? Ghost Rider.
Dazzler? Ghost Rider.
Lorelei? Ghost Rider.
Decoys prior to Lorelei? Ghost Rider.
MDMs? Only possible because Ghost Rider was responsible for the next generation of high density capacitors and later fusion cores.
Missile pods? initially not a Ghost Rider spawned technology, but nowdays RMN pods are so full of Ghost Rider tech, we can safely call them Ghost Rider pods.


I'm having immense trouble understanding how these pods are supposed to avoid throwing it in the League, or MAlign's face how good RMN tech is, when it's all from Ghost Rider, and whether you're using a Dazzler mounted on a fusion 1 drive missile, or a fusion 4 drive system defense missile, a Dazzler is still a Dazzler, a decoy is a decoy, and MDM's are MDM's.

Lorelei is new. No Solarian force has survived combat where all of those high-tech toys were used.

I'm only upto page 6 of proof here starting from page 4 after we clarified what exactly this idea was supposed to be. To paraphrase Reverend Sullivan "would you care to guess how much more proof I can find, I almost guarantee your guess will be low"

I have shown that the proofs you seem to think support your arguments are a total misunderstanding on your part or outright putting words in my mouth. You can keep on trying though, nobody is stopping you. If you do want to continue, better be ready to refute the basis of my proposal.

1) Missile salvo sizes have become too large that new defensive strategy or equipment is needed.
2) SLN missile technology can be spoofed by Elric era ghost rider drone technology.
3) Pods can be equipped with impellers.
4) There are ways to attach pods to ships's hulls.
5) It is important to hide as much of your fleet's capabilities from the enemy.
6) The SLN will have MDM pods sooner than they would have pod layers.
7) The SLN is only going to 'jump' GA forces if they have a huge advantage in hulls and pods.
8) You need to survive the initial huge missile salvo/s otherwise your better ships are useless.

Rakhmamort wrote:

Later on in that same page, you ridiculed that light ships would carry many EW drones at all. On Basilisk Station, Honor took a LIGHT CRUISER up against the Sirius, which was later rated at a minimum heavy cruiser, if not battlecruiser, and had upwards of 3 decoys per broadside. Decoys are the same as EW drones, they both serve to lure missiles away from the launch ship.

ARE YOU EVEN READING MY POSTS? On Basilisk Station, the missile environment is pathetic compared to what we are seeing in current combat and those 3 drones per broadside were almost not enough even then. What more would current missile combat do to the survivability of these 3 drones per broadside of yours?

Are you not reading our posts. If during On Basilisk Station a frelling LIGHT CRUISER has SIX complete decoys not even counting the rest of her defenses, what in the hell do you think MODERN ships are mounting?

Why the hell do you think ship sizes for everybody in the Haven Sector have been going up? They need the extra room to keep mounting all the toys everybody fields, in ever larger numbers.

Rakhmamort wrote:From the very start of the thread, the position regarding fitting standard rails and having the contours like a standard pod WAS, IS and WILL BE, NICE TO HAVE, not a requirement. Go check the very first post.

Your arguments keep flexing, "oh my pods can be limpeted, and put on rails, and, and, and" while also ignoring key facts like the incredibly minor point of how the second your pod is turned on and limpeting itself to a ship, you have a day tops before that pod is dead.

If you ARENT limpeting these things to your hull, then because of the box launcher, the fusion core, and the fact it's a bloody BOX, it's actually taking up more space inside a ship. Your whole point to these things was to save space right, but the only way it's going to save any internal space is rail-mounted, which brings us right back to my very specific points.... you mount these on rails, and you're losing even more tactically than you can possibly gain.

Rakhmamort wrote:

A half sized pod might be capable of being dropped slightly faster than a full sized one, but I doubt they could do so twice as fast. (Maybe if the two halfpods could be bolted together so the pod rails and deployment hardware could always treat it as a full sized pods - so it only split after being dropped.

I've already pointed out that it would be a nice feature. 2 half pods to have the contour of 1 standard pod. Better handling and all that it entails.

Sure as hell looks like you're pushing a primary rail usage for these pods. But earlier in the thread, as I observed in my wall of text of proof, you also wanted these pods to have full up impeller drives of their very own in addition to mounting Dazzlers, and decoys.

Jonathan_S made several very good posts on the topic about how you're pretty close to relying on TARDIS for these pods can possibly squeeze everything you want, plus a fusion core, plus a limpet tractor, plus an impeller ring, plus the rail fitting so they can be, but not forced to be rail mounted, which from the above quotes is a bit unlikely.

The very first time you've even remotely started to make a practical application is now:

Rakhmamort wrote:If you give the specs to engineers, they can find ways to do it, even if its bolting the damned things to the hull like what the Andermani did. I sincerely doubt that with all the advanced technology the RMN has, they wouldn't be able to put in a magnetic clamp on the thing. I don't know why it would be difficult to have a mode of power reception to keep the mag clamps running instead of starting up the pod's fusion plant.

Up until that very statement, you've been adamant they have to be used the way everybody actually uses their pods. Namely, dedicated long-endurance system defense pods, rail launched mid endurance, or limpeted low endurance from non-podlayers. However, your still dodging the questions which is how YOU think it should be done, and you're using "oh the engineers can figure it out". If you're going to keep pushing this suggestion, as aggressively as you are (I swear to Christ, you're worse than Horrible Hemphill pushing the spinal graser capital ship concept must have been), then YOU must be submitting ideas on how everything, not just one or two things work.


but I'm done, you're a Horrible Hemphill pushing badly cooked Skimper ideas, without actually hearing how the closest most people seem to be coming to agreement with you is various levels of paraphrased "well sure the Grand Alliance could do something like this, but why?"


You enjoy your thread sir, if you're going to keep pushing the idea, put some more serious thought into your idea and actually submit how YOU believe it should be implemented not leaving it to an engineer to figure it out for you.

Rakhmamort wrote:Why not? If the pods=drone's performance is in the same level as Lorelei platforms against SLN missiles, why use more expensive and scarce platform when facing less capable missiles?

The actual economics depend on a number of variables that we don't actually know.

But there's a potential for the Lorelei drones to be more cost effective over time than your pod-drones; even if your design is significantly cheaper to build.

It depends on the survivability rate of the Lorelei - which against SLN missiles might be quite good. The Lorelei doesn't appear to have expendable components it relies on ECM from built in emitters, so if the drone isn't destroyed it should be able to be refurbished relatively quickly and inexpensively. (Refuel it, replace the short service life components of it's micro-fusion reactor, check for operational life on the nodes, etc)

Your pod-drones, as I understand it, rely largely on the launch of their dazzlers for their effectiveness. That means that even if the base drone survives and can be recovered and refurbished you also have to replace the expended dazzlers. The refit likely wouldn't be much, if any, cheaper than refitting a Lorelei as the wear components around the power system and drive would be pretty much the same (Ghost Rider micro-fusion and drive drive tech). Even short ranged, unguided dazzlers aren't cheap so firing off even 4 a pod-drone will add up.

If the Loreleis tend not to survive combat against the SLN then a cheaper (purchase cost) but similarly effective design would be more economical since neither would be expected to survive so the purchase cost dominates to economics. But if the Loreleis often survive then their lower operational costs (costs less to refurbish than to refurbish and replace expended dazzlers) could end up giving them a lower total cost of ownership.


But to know for sure we'd need to know at least
1) Purchase costs for both platforms
2) Refurbish costs of both platforms
3) short-Dazzler replacement costs
4) Average combat lifetime of both platforms

Jonathan_S wrote:

Rakhmamort wrote:Why not? If the pods=drone's performance is in the same level as Lorelei platforms against SLN missiles, why use more expensive and scarce platform when facing less capable missiles?

The actual economics depend on a number of variables that we don't actually know.

But there's a potential for the Lorelei drones to be more cost effective over time than your pod-drones; even if your design is significantly cheaper to build.

It depends on the survivability rate of the Lorelei - which against SLN missiles might be quite good. The Lorelei doesn't appear to have expendable components it relies on ECM from built in emitters, so if the drone isn't destroyed it should be able to be refurbished relatively quickly and inexpensively. (Refuel it, replace the short service life components of it's micro-fusion reactor, check for operational life on the nodes, etc)

Your pod-drones, as I understand it, rely largely on the launch of their dazzlers for their effectiveness. That means that even if the base drone survives and can be recovered and refurbished you also have to replace the expended dazzlers. The refit likely wouldn't be much, if any, cheaper than refitting a Lorelei as the wear components around the power system and drive would be pretty much the same (Ghost Rider micro-fusion and drive drive tech). Even short ranged, unguided dazzlers aren't cheap so firing off even 4 a pod-drone will add up.

If the Loreleis tend not to survive combat against the SLN then a cheaper (purchase cost) but similarly effective design would be more economical since neither would be expected to survive so the purchase cost dominates to economics. But if the Loreleis often survive then their lower operational costs (costs less to refurbish than to refurbish and replace expended dazzlers) could end up giving them a lower total cost of ownership.


But to know for sure we'd need to know at least
1) Purchase costs for both platforms
2) Refurbish costs of both platforms
3) short-Dazzler replacement costs
4) Average combat lifetime of both platforms

First, purchase cost of both platforms. Lets look at a defensive pod with 4 dazzlers. Expend one dazzler with every enemy salvo, your defensive pod lasts at best 4 minutes. A Lorelei drone lasts much much longer. (#4) When you consider that to carry your defensive pods you have to reduce the offensive pods, even if each Lorelei is 10 times the cost of your defensive pods, Lorelei is a better deal.

Second there is refurbishment costs. To refurbish the pod or Lorelei itself should both be about the same cost. That is until you get to #3, the dazzler replacement, which makes refurbishment much more expensive

Somtaaw wrote:Are you not reading our posts. If during On Basilisk Station a frelling LIGHT CRUISER has SIX complete decoys not even counting the rest of her defenses, what in the hell do you think MODERN ships are mounting?

Why the hell do you think ship sizes for everybody in the Haven Sector have been going up? They need the extra room to keep mounting all the toys everybody fields, in ever larger numbers.

Yeah, the light cruiser carried six and a two tube salvo incoming fire was able to take out one. How many decoys do you need when the salvo size isn't just two missiles but two hundred missiles?

If you noticed the weight of the decoy, it was already 52 tons then, as much as a full up MDM missile weighs. I'm sure that with all the improvements that have been added to Manticoran decoys, the weight would have gone up, especially if they had their own fusion plants.

So how many full MDM sized decoys do current light combatants carry?

Your arguments keep flexing, "oh my pods can be limpeted, and put on rails, and, and, and" while also ignoring key facts like the incredibly minor point of how the second your pod is turned on and limpeting itself to a ship, you have a day tops before that pod is dead.

And where did you get that information? Have you seen the actual specs for the pod? Or how long magnetic grapnels can last? I'm quite sure even today's engineers can make magnetic grapnels last far longer than a day, especially if you tell them the system might need to operate for a couple of weeks.

If you ARENT limpeting these things to your hull, then because of the box launcher, the fusion core, and the fact it's a bloody BOX, it's actually taking up more space inside a ship. Your whole point to these things was to save space right, but the only way it's going to save any internal space is rail-mounted, which brings us right back to my very specific points.... you mount these on rails, and you're losing even more tactically than you can possibly gain.

Do you know what the phrase 'nice to have' means at all? It's nice to have the shape like that of current pods. Its nice to have the necessary attachments for the standard pod rails. Nice to have, not REQUIRED. The shape and the attachments can be bypassed because there are other ways for the ship to bring them.

BTW, I don't believe that very short limit on tractors that you have been pushing. If a battlecruiser's tractors can drag a LAC for several days through hyperspace, then I'm quite sure that pods inside wedges would have less stress on them and that would mean longer endurance.

Sure as hell looks like you're pushing a primary rail usage for these pods.

That's quite a feat! You are sure of what I am thinking and yet you've been very wrong with a lot of your assumptions. lol!

But earlier in the thread, as I observed in my wall of text of proof, you also wanted these pods to have full up impeller drives of their very own in addition to mounting Dazzlers, and decoys.

I was about to say you finally understood something correctly but sadly, still wrong. The pod is the decoy. It has built in Ghost Rider decoy tech as of the Elric battle.

Up until that very statement, you've been adamant they have to be used the way everybody actually uses their pods. Namely, dedicated long-endurance system defense pods, rail launched mid endurance, or limpeted low endurance from non-podlayers. However, your still dodging the questions which is how YOU think it should be done, and you're using "oh the engineers can figure it out". If you're going to keep pushing this suggestion, as aggressively as you are (I swear to Christ, you're worse than Horrible Hemphill pushing the spinal graser capital ship concept must have been), then YOU must be submitting ideas on how everything, not just one or two things work.

I have already pointed out that the space is there. 7 Mk16s can fit in a half pod. I'm only launching 4. Half of the space for the full pod's fusion plant, bunkerage and other secondary systems plus the space for 3 full Mk16s and their launchers.
That's 3 Mk16 sized fusion plants plus bunkerage, 3 warheads, 3 sets of impellers and 3 sets of launchers.
Arguing that there is insufficient space is laughable at this point.

but I'm done, you're a Horrible Hemphill pushing badly cooked Skimper ideas, without actually hearing how the closest most people seem to be coming to agreement with you is various levels of paraphrased "well sure the Grand Alliance could do something like this, but why?"

You have not refuted any of the reasons that would require more decoys. You have not shown that the current decoy complement is sufficient for the current combat environment. You have not shown that the concept of fielding more decoys is wrong. You have not shown that engineering wise it is impossible to build.

The only thing you have done is show that you have the mentality of 'not made here'. As for being compared to Hemphill, please don't. I'm not delivering an entire set of toys that would change the combat environment and make current enemy fleets obsolete. I'm just proposing a new way of using not so recent tech.

You enjoy your thread sir, if you're going to keep pushing the idea, put some more serious thought into your idea and actually submit how YOU believe it should be implemented not leaving it to an engineer to figure it out for you.

If you've been reading my posts, I've already done that. Provided the space, and provided the necessary shape for impeller rings to be installed. You are just the one who keep harping it cannot be done.

Jonathan_S wrote:The actual economics depend on a number of variables that we don't actually know.

But there's a potential for the Lorelei drones to be more cost effective over time than your pod-drones; even if your design is significantly cheaper to build.

It depends on the survivability rate of the Lorelei - which against SLN missiles might be quite good. The Lorelei doesn't appear to have expendable components it relies on ECM from built in emitters, so if the drone isn't destroyed it should be able to be refurbished relatively quickly and inexpensively. (Refuel it, replace the short service life components of it's micro-fusion reactor, check for operational life on the nodes, etc)

The might I will agree on. We have no data on the survivability of Lorelei at all. It's only use was in the simulations. There was no mention they were used in the actual battle.

Your pod-drones, as I understand it, rely largely on the launch of their dazzlers for their effectiveness. That means that even if the base drone survives and can be recovered and refurbished you also have to replace the expended dazzlers. The refit likely wouldn't be much, if any, cheaper than refitting a Lorelei as the wear components around the power system and drive would be pretty much the same (Ghost Rider micro-fusion and drive drive tech). Even short ranged, unguided dazzlers aren't cheap so firing off even 4 a pod-drone will add up.

Not exactly. The Elric picket did not use Dazzlers to spoof the Havenite salvo. The Ghost Rider decoy tech did that on their own. The Dazzler is just to make the decoy capability better. Recently blinded missiles would be easier to fool than non blinded ones.

As for the expended Dazzlers, I don't think that is fair to add that when you compare the cost of refurbishment. Lorelei would also benefit if the missiles it is spoofing were be-Dazzled. It's mother ship would just be the one providing the Dazzlers and much more expensive Dazzlers at that.

If the Loreleis tend not to survive combat against the SLN then a cheaper (purchase cost) but similarly effective design would be more economical since neither would be expected to survive so the purchase cost dominates to economics. But if the Loreleis often survive then their lower operational costs (costs less to refurbish than to refurbish and replace expended dazzlers) could end up giving them a lower total cost of ownership.

This is logical if the Loreleis have a high enough survival rate to offset the production costs.

But to know for sure we'd need to know at least
1) Purchase costs for both platforms
2) Refurbish costs of both platforms
3) short-Dazzler replacement costs
4) Average combat lifetime of both platforms

Except for #3, these are reasonable.

Pods to maneuver and limpet do not need the fusion reactor to even be turned on at all. That is required to power the missiles and fire them. Think about it... In a ships core, they power up the pods capacitor which starts the fusion reactor. On top of this, a pod has reaction jets etc. On top of this a ship has tractors of its own. So, dump pod out the rear with just its capacitors full. This gives you onboard communications, navigation, maneuvering. Tractors or just maneuvering jets on the pod, move pod and place position on hull. There are these amazing "high tech" really advanced inventions called an actuated HOOK, or electro magnets, for holding a pod in place on the hull externally.

There is also this amazing "high tech" invention called a POWER CORD to keep a pod at standby...

One of these days Manticore will "invent" a power cord and therefore give its limpetted pods effectively external eternal endurance. Can't wait for this "brilliant invention".

Rakhmamort wrote:BTW, I don't believe that very short limit on tractors that you have been pushing. If a battlecruiser's tractors can drag a LAC for several days through hyperspace, then I'm quite sure that pods inside wedges would have less stress on them and that would mean longer endurance.

The issue he's referring to isn't tractor endurance. It's power-supply endurance - in order to use their integrated tractor beams, the pods have to fire up their onboard fusion reactor. And then the clock is ticking until it runs out of reaction mass - which RFC has implied is only good for a few days at most.

Quite a different matter when the BC was using its onboard tractors, powered by its numerous reactors and substantial fuel capacity. Not to mention, warships in hyperspace get free power via the wedge/sails - a happy condition that does not apply to pods under any circumstances.

munroburton wrote:

Rakhmamort wrote:BTW, I don't believe that very short limit on tractors that you have been pushing. If a battlecruiser's tractors can drag a LAC for several days through hyperspace, then I'm quite sure that pods inside wedges would have less stress on them and that would mean longer endurance.

The issue he's referring to isn't tractor endurance. It's power-supply endurance - in order to use their integrated tractor beams, the pods have to fire up their onboard fusion reactor. And then the clock is ticking until it runs out of reaction mass - which RFC has implied is only good for a few days at most.

Quite a different matter when the BC was using its onboard tractors, powered by its numerous reactors and substantial fuel capacity. Not to mention, warships in hyperspace get free power via the wedge/sails - a happy condition that does not apply to pods under any circumstances.

1) Why can't power be 'beamed' into it like in an old style decoy?
2) I'm sure there's a way the ship provides power to the pod when it is time to fire up its fusion plant. Why can't you power up whatever attachment gizmo you will install in it by that method?
3) See Relax's post. lol!

Rakhmamort wrote:1) Why can't power be 'beamed' into it like in an old style decoy?
2) I'm sure there's a way the ship provides power to the pod when it is time to fire up its fusion plant. Why can't you power up whatever attachment gizmo you will install in it by that method?
3) See Relax's post. lol!

I don't know. I didn't make up the rules of the Honorverse. The explanation is probably handwavium - something like the mass or surface area required for beamed power transmitters/receivers would cost too much to be effective and pods have fundamental dimensional limits - a receiver might require the sacrifice of another missile per pod, for example. As for transmitters, how many PDLCs or sensors etc. will you need to sacrifice from the warship, bearing in mind there may be 20, 50 or even more pods limpeted on, requiring multiple transmitters(although they could certainly share transmitters)?

The "power cord" argument has strong merits but does not solve problem of limpeted pods being activated and using their limited fuel up - you'd need a podlayer, ammo ship or to add external refuelling points to every ship.

I don't really want to wade into the heart of this argument - was just pointing out that a BC's tractoring endurance is irrelevant to pods.