Spider drive ships and technical limitations

WLBjork wrote:The Spider Drive requires a triple hull in order to operate. They have three broadsides. Putting these together suggest that the ships are roughly triangular when viewed beam-on. It isn't so clear exactly how they appear, but my guess is that the points of the triangle are where the broadsides are mounted.

My visualization was the points of the triangle were the "triple skeg" where the rows of spider nodes project from, while the broadside weapons are mounted on the flat faces of the triangle.

Though Alpha nodes aren't necessarily incompatible with that as long as the ring of them is far enough out to avoid interfering with the spider projectors. Basically scale up a conventional hull form until the entire spider ship fits inside it and the locations of the Alpha nodes on that oversized model are where the rings need to be to safely work on the spider ship -- but you don't need the rest of that conventional hull; just the nodes in those relative spots.

Of course doing that would drop compensator efficiency to that of that hypothetical scaled-up conventional hull; but that wouldn't matter to a spider ship relying on grav plates instead.

Doing that would be a lot of tonnage, and the alpha nodes would be even more vulnerable to combat damage when they presumably don't have an armored hammerhead to partially protect them. (Though I guess with sufficient structure you could keep them somewhat out of the way and run them out on rams (like Sirius did in OBS) when you need to use them. But spider drive ships seem to have tonnage to spare - so it's possible that the MAlign did put in this redundant drive system.




On the other hand we know that tractor beams (which are grav based) can work within a grav wave - the peeps discussed possibly having to tow ships clear of the grav wave if they lost a sail when ambushing the RMN convoy in SVW. If tractors can work without destructive grav interference then it's possible that the essentially overpowered tractors that are each spider projector can also just work within a grav wave. In that case you wouldn't seem to need a 2nd drive system to cross through grav waves or position yourself for wormhole transit. (Though without sails to act as grav sumps you still couldn't use a compensator or get the acceleration boost or free power from being in a grav wave - but you'd be able to cross them as necessary to reach your targets)

Here's a thought.

Is the design and placement of an Alpha node a requirement for the sail, or the or the stress bands.

If there's no need to provide for the bands, then maybe the problem for the spider ships to use grav sails becomes trivial.
Maybe as simple as one centrally placed node. (Well perhaps two, one each end)

Theemile wrote:The shape of conventional honorverse ships is very much dictated by the sails, and a conical spider ship with triple symmetry and drive skegs seem to violate the Alpha sail rules completely. Unless a new technology has been discovered, an extendable structure would have to be used to get the correct geometry for the alpha nodes on a spider ship, further increasing mass and the volume necessary for what amounts to a secondary drive system.

From the essay "Honor Harrington's Navy" at the end of SVW it's stated that the placement of drive nodes is dictated by the physics of generating the wedge, not necessarily the sails. We're never given any indication as to what placement alpha nodes would need to be placed to function, other than the obvious conclusion that being placed in the same ring as the beta nodes is the best solution for ships that have beta nodes. We know they need to be mounted to project a fore and aft sail but not much else.

For that matter, alpha nodes are a "secondary drive system" for conventional ships as well. A ship lacking alpha nodes could operate perfectly fine in-system or in hyper as long as it avoids waves. Wormholes would be a problem, though.

Annachie wrote:Here's a thought.

Is the design and placement of an Alpha node a requirement for the sail, or the or the stress bands.

If there's no need to provide for the bands, then maybe the problem for the spider ships to use grav sails becomes trivial.
Maybe as simple as one centrally placed node. (Well perhaps two, one each end)

Unfortunately, it takes 8 alpha nodes to generate each sail and losing one doesn't allow you to make a sail with only 7. At least not with anything we've yet been shown, although RFC could have almost anything up his sleeve for future titles.

Galactic Sapper wrote:

Theemile wrote:The shape of conventional honorverse ships is very much dictated by the sails, and a conical spider ship with triple symmetry and drive skegs seem to violate the Alpha sail rules completely. Unless a new technology has been discovered, an extendable structure would have to be used to get the correct geometry for the alpha nodes on a spider ship, further increasing mass and the volume necessary for what amounts to a secondary drive system.

From the essay "Honor Harrington's Navy" at the end of SVW it's stated that the placement of drive nodes is dictated by the physics of generating the wedge, not necessarily the sails. We're never given any indication as to what placement alpha nodes would need to be placed to function, other than the obvious conclusion that being placed in the same ring as the beta nodes is the best solution for ships that have beta nodes. We know they need to be mounted to project a fore and aft sail but not much else.

For that matter, alpha nodes are a "secondary drive system" for conventional ships as well. A ship lacking alpha nodes could operate perfectly fine in-system or in hyper as long as it avoids waves. Wormholes would be a problem, though.

Annachie wrote:Here's a thought.

Is the design and placement of an Alpha node a requirement for the sail, or the or the stress bands.

If there's no need to provide for the bands, then maybe the problem for the spider ships to use grav sails becomes trivial.
Maybe as simple as one centrally placed node. (Well perhaps two, one each end)

Unfortunately, it takes 8 alpha nodes to generate each sail and losing one doesn't allow you to make a sail with only 7. At least not with anything we've yet been shown, although RFC could have almost anything up his sleeve for future titles.

Actually, wedges can be generated by only 1 ring - forts use the single ring geometry, as did some ships in the Manticore ascendant series. Such ships can be ovoid spheres or other shapes. You do not get the same accel out of such a system, and theoretically an opponent can model the wedge to see though it, but it is a working system.

The double ring is the requirement of, specifically, the Sail, where 2 are required for control in grav waves, forcing the spindle shaped hull.

Ships can run with just Beta nodes, like conventional LACs usually do, but their accel is limited. Alpha nodes provide 2/3rds of the power for a military wedge (despite being only 1/3rd of the nodes in a ring), And can create a wedge on their own, without any beta nodes. So I would hardly declare the part providing at least 2/3rds of the power a "secondary drive system".

Theemile wrote:Actually, wedges can be generated by only 1 ring - forts use the single ring geometry, as did some ships in the Manticore ascendant series. Such ships can be ovoid spheres or other shapes. You do not get the same accel out of such a system, and theoretically an opponent can model the wedge to see though it, but it is a working system.

The double ring is the requirement of, specifically, the Sail, where 2 are required for control in grav waves, forcing the spindle shaped hull.

Missiles[1], shuttles, and pinnace also use only one ring (usually mounted aft). The LAC designs seem to use a pair of beta rings (and now a pair of beta-squared for RMN/GSN designs) for redundancy and increased power - and generally looked more like starship hull shapes than shuttles and pinnaces did. I assume a recon drone also uses a single ring, but can't recall a diagram or description of one detailed enough to be sure.

(And its a good thing that a single beta ring doesn't impose hull geometry restrictions or the wings and other aerodynamic flight/control surfaces on pinnances and shuttles would be a total engineering POS to design to fold/retract within that safe double-spindle volume when operating under wedge)

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[1] To be pedantic that's true for single drive missiles whether or not they are extended range. DDM, MDMs, and multi-stage missiles do have multiple drive rings but only one is active at a time with the other(s) being shielding by baffle or distance from the emissions of the active ring.

We don't know why losing an Alpha Node wipes out the sail.
Nor do we know how close together those nodes can be to each other if there's no requirement for producing a wedge. (Totally blanked on that word earlier)

Nor do we know how much the size of the alpha nodes can be reduced if there's no requirement to produce a wedge.

Basically, at this stage and from what we know, there's nothing to stop a spider ship being able to create a sail.
It's just engineering.