?

Jonathan_S wrote:So they knew about them before Galton and should be able to tell that the graser weapons Galton had didn't match up to the OB ones (or the ones used at Beowulf)

But that is mainly a size difference and not a functional difference. Specifically, it does NOT mean that Galton could not have produced the ones encountered at either Manticore, Grayson (Used to attack Blackbird?) or Beowulf.

penny wrote:

Jonathan_S wrote:And if you want it to slow down so it can loiter in a given area it has to spend exactly as long slowing down. Spend 2 hours working up to about 21,000 KPS and you'll need to spend another 2 hours to cancel out all that velocity it built up in the original acceleration.

Is that written in stone? For a spider-drive I always assumed the opposite. Not based on textev, simply my own assumption. I always assumed, at least for a spider-drive, that decelerating would be much more efficient than accelerating. The ship simply has to toss out its anchors, tractors, that grab at the wall. It doesn't have to continuously reach for a new purchase point ahead of the ship as it does when accelerating. Which would be more in line with the movements of an Arachnid plus give it a bit more tactical mobility. I am not expecting an LD to stop on a dime, but I do expect its stopping distance to make a Porsche proud. Emergency acceleration. Emergency deceleration. Smell those brake pads? Textev?

No - no text-ev either way.
But if you throw out an anchor on a ship that's got much velocity on it you don't end up with a stopped ship -- if you're lucky you end up with a broken anchor chain; if you're unlucky you end up with a capstan sized hole in your hull.

And it's not like a car where the engine and brakes are different systems; so it isn't surprising that they'd have different abilities to apply force.

So I'd assumed that the tractors capable of pulling the ship forward at a given acceleration would only be able to apply that same amount of force to slowing it down. Try to apply more force and I'd expect something to give -- if you're lucky non-destructively (like a circuit breaker trips); if you're unlucky the tractor projector might be damaged or just yanked off the hull.
But, yes, that is all just my assumption.

Edit: Though, as tlb first pointed out, stop a manned spider ship faster than it can accelerate and you'll be dealing with injured or dead crew from how much accel would leak through the grav plates. (And, no, it won't be like a hyper translation -- that somehow affects the velocity of the ship and everything in it uniformly -- where-as the spider drive is clearly does NOT, because the crew feels it's acceleration and need those grav plates to offset it)

penny wrote:However, it appears that the mechanics of accelerating and decelerating would be different for a spider-drive. As in inherently more efficient. When accelerating, a spider-drive has to continuously reach for a new purchase point ahead of the ship. Much like walking or crawling one has to put one foot ahead of the next, so forth and so on, on and on. But to stop -- much like what is depicted in cartoons, on the basketball court and for an ice skater -- one only has to stop both feet. Drag the feet, like what Fred Flintstone does when he just puts his feet down on the ground underneath the car.

When stopping, a spider-drive does not have to reach for a purchase point. It only has to drag its anchor as efficiently as it can. It can use the purchase points that are at the current position of the ship.

tlb wrote:So you don't like it when I agree with you about the dime?

There is no dragging of an anchor, if it does not grab the alpha wall then it has done nothing and there is no deceleration. There is no efficiency gain that depends on where it grabs (anyway, for all we know the heads are fixed and the ship or missile has to flip end for end to slow down - that is something for the author to explain). Either way the process is the same: grab, tug and repeat until the proper speed is obtained (either zero or max).

The picture that penny is painting is that the tractor does not have to push or pull on the hyperwall the way that it does on acceleration, it just has to extend and drag, like Fred Flintstone.

Of course, there's zero evidence that it can do that. Even if it can, there's little to say that it would even be more efficient: think of car ABS - Antilock Brake System. The Fred Flintstone manoeuvre is not the most efficient way of stopping, because the moment that you're dragging your feed or tires across the floor, the adherence goes down a lot. That means the friction force transmitted back to the vehicle to decelerate it is lesser. Just watch any motor racing you'd care to watch and see how locking up your tires usually implies going wide and losing time. Think also of a rake: you can move much more earth if you do it properly instead of dragging it over your lawn. Another example would be a mountain climber using pickaxes: they can haul themselves up and down if they stick those into the mountain face, but can they stop themselves from falling just by dragging those? I've only seen that in movies.

Moreover, even if that does slow down more, is it stealthy? Again the analogy with tires: when they lock up and drag, they turn some of the excess energy into sound waves and heat. So if the spider dragged on the hyperwall, would it be visible to gravitic sensors, or even EM ones? We can't be talking about a sudden deceleration from 0.6c to attack speed, let's say 0.2c in 30 seconds. That would be a 400,000 gravity manoeuvre, without wedges to provide a gravity sump to compensate. Not even hardware could withstand that for a full 30 seconds. And 30 seconds is a long time anyway for the defenders to get some sort of defence up.

penny wrote:

Jonathan_S wrote:And if you want it to slow down so it can loiter in a given area it has to spend exactly as long slowing down. Spend 2 hours working up to about 21,000 KPS and you'll need to spend another 2 hours to cancel out all that velocity it built up in the original acceleration.

Is that written in stone? For a spider-drive I always assumed the opposite. Not based on textev, simply my own assumption. I always assumed, at least for a spider-drive, that decelerating would be much more efficient than accelerating. The ship simply has to toss out its anchors, tractors, that grab at the wall. It doesn't have to continuously reach for a new purchase point ahead of the ship as it does when accelerating. Which would be more in line with the movements of an Arachnid plus give it a bit more tactical mobility. I am not expecting an LD to stop on a dime, but I do expect its stopping distance to make a Porsche proud. Emergency acceleration. Emergency deceleration. Smell those brake pads? Textev?

Jonathan_S wrote:No - no text-ev either way.
But if you throw out an anchor on a ship that's got much velocity on it you don't end up with a stopped ship -- if you're lucky you end up with a broken anchor chain; if you're unlucky you end up with a capstan sized hole in your hull.

And it's not like a car where the engine and brakes are different systems; so it isn't surprising that they'd have different abilities to apply force.

So I'd assumed that the tractors capable of pulling the ship forward at a given acceleration would only be able to apply that same amount of force to slowing it down. Try to apply more force and I'd expect something to give -- if you're lucky non-destructively (like a circuit breaker trips); if you're unlucky the tractor projector might be damaged or just yanked off the hull.
But, yes, that is all just my assumption.

Edit: Though, as tlb first pointed out, stop a manned spider ship faster than it can accelerate and you'll be dealing with injured or dead crew from how much accel would leak through the grav plates. (And, no, it won't be like a hyper translation -- that somehow affects the velocity of the ship and everything in it uniformly -- where-as the spider drive is clearly does NOT, because the crew feels it's acceleration and need those grav plates to offset it)

But do consider that in the HV gravity is highly configurable, very manageable; considering the Unified Field Theory and the Theory of Everything discussed upstream has been solved. Since that discussion, I have learned of what exactly happens with the reconfiguration of the wedge into the sails. Very frickin' cool. But that further adds credence to the highly configurable and manageable nature of gravity.

So I view it more as a controlled anchor. As in finding the pressure point of the brakes. More akin to efficiently pumping the brakes. Anti-lock brakes anyone? Besides, even though the ability of the grav plates cannot be exceeded does not mean that that ability is reached quickly or efficiently in all circumstances. Nor do I suspect that accel can be controlled and varied with wedges with respect to compensator limitations as finely as with a spider-drive. Therefore, a spider-drive may still be able to eke out much more performance out of the limitation with respect to its grav plates than wedges with respect to its compensator. I suspect it would be as difficult to finesse wedges with respect to compensator limitations as it would be with a Dodge Hellcat with the red key in use. I would expect safety comes at the expense of a lot of performance with GA ships and their compensator limitations. Even under computer control. But mine is as much speculation as any.

@ tlb. Sorry, I wasn't aware you were agreeing about the dime. Penny for an apology?

The description of what the G-torps did at Manticore with the Hesperus sounded like they came in relatively slow (vs the various pod based weapons) and were almost hanging nearby when they opened fire and hosed the grazers around for 3 seconds. Like you can play a stream of water out of a hose only you're using a lightsaber. Some of what supports that was that the same weapons cut through the station in multiple places including at least a reactor. These things cut in any direction and they were described as slicing through things ....Like Hesperus and Hexapuma...not "Just" burning a hole straight though the target.
Grazer damage in starship fights usually runs along the lines of a lance of coherent light burning THROUGH armor and through the guts of the ship...like an energy icepick..on one vector with the release of energy into the parts of the hull & equipment doing explosive damage from catastrophic heating along with systems blowing up from overload . Not slashing like a double edged Samurai sword. Ship's grazers- or the grazer pods that are talked about from the salvaging of the capital ship grazers from the SLN Raging Justice at Manticore - fire and then recharge and fire again. But they don't slew around like a lightsaber cutting across (and though) a body of a piece of equipment. Perhaps you should visualize with Honor did with her sword in the duel in her roll as Protector's Sword. Two cuts, differnt planes, body in two pieces plus head separated. Now make that burn last a whole 3 seconds and start chopping up part a 70+KM long massive space station into pieces like a Master Sushi Chef dicing an eel.

This is not a passing, dragging slice, it's moving it in a wave motion up and down as you pivot in the direction of your target's long axis.

Brigade XO wrote:The description of what the G-torps did at Manticore with the Hesperus sounded like they came in relatively slow (vs the various pod based weapons) and were almost hanging nearby when they opened fire and hosed the grazers around for 3 seconds. Like you can play a stream of water out of a hose only you're using a lightsaber. Some of what supports that was that the same weapons cut through the station in multiple places including at least a reactor. These things cut in any direction and they were described as slicing through things ....Like Hesperus and Hexapuma...not "Just" burning a hole straight though the target.
Grazer damage in starship fights usually runs along the lines of a lance of coherent light burning THROUGH armor and through the guts of the ship...like an energy icepick..on one vector with the release of energy into the parts of the hull & equipment doing explosive damage from catastrophic heating along with systems blowing up from overload . Not slashing like a double edged Samurai sword. Ship's grazers- or the grazer pods that are talked about from the salvaging of the capital ship grazers from the SLN Raging Justice at Manticore - fire and then recharge and fire again. But they don't slew around like a lightsaber cutting across (and though) a body of a piece of equipment. Perhaps you should visualize with Honor did with her sword in the duel in her roll as Protector's Sword. Two cuts, differnt planes, body in two pieces plus head separated. Now make that burn last a whole 3 seconds and start chopping up part a 70+KM long massive space station into pieces like a Master Sushi Chef dicing an eel.

This is not a passing, dragging slice, it's moving it in a wave motion up and down as you pivot in the direction of your target's long axis.

Exactly! Nice post! And to make matters worse, there can be a mode that simulates the Doppler Effect when it attacks. I won't get into the same old argument again as far as the wedges, but I doubt sidewalls can handle the increasing intensity from a 3-second time on target at the same locality of the sidewalls. As another option of the 3-second ability, the notion still reminds me of the Death Blossom mode in The Last Starfighter.

https://youtu.be/MLNvUsTBGyE


@ Thinksmarkedly. Yes, anti-lock brakes in the previous post!

Brigade XO wrote:The description of what the G-torps did at Manticore with the Hesperus sounded like they came in relatively slow (vs the various pod based weapons) and were almost hanging nearby when they opened fire and hosed the grazers around for 3 seconds. Like you can play a stream of water out of a hose only you're using a lightsaber. Some of what supports that was that the same weapons cut through the station in multiple places including at least a reactor. These things cut in any direction and they were described as slicing through things ....Like Hesperus and Hexapuma...not "Just" burning a hole straight though the target.
Grazer damage in starship fights usually runs along the lines of a lance of coherent light burning THROUGH armor and through the guts of the ship...like an energy icepick..on one vector with the release of energy into the parts of the hull & equipment doing explosive damage from catastrophic heating along with systems blowing up from overload . Not slashing like a double edged Samurai sword. Ship's grazers- or the grazer pods that are talked about from the salvaging of the capital ship grazers from the SLN Raging Justice at Manticore - fire and then recharge and fire again. But they don't slew around like a lightsaber cutting across (and though) a body of a piece of equipment. Perhaps you should visualize with Honor did with her sword in the duel in her roll as Protector's Sword. Two cuts, differnt planes, body in two pieces plus head separated. Now make that burn last a whole 3 seconds and start chopping up part a 70+KM long massive space station into pieces like a Master Sushi Chef dicing an eel.

This is not a passing, dragging slice, it's moving it in a wave motion up and down as you pivot in the direction of your target's long axis.

penny wrote:Exactly! Nice post! And to make matters worse, there can be a mode that simulates the Doppler Effect when it attacks. I won't get into the same old argument again as far as the wedges, but I doubt sidewalls can handle the increasing intensity from a 3-second time on target at the same locality of the sidewalls.

I think that is the point: in a normal fight with wedge and sidewalls, the beam has to concentrate enough energy on a point to burn through; but in the attack on the space stations there was no protection, so the beams were free to move and slice. I have not checked to see whether the slicing was straight or wavy, but wavy would not hit was many sections as moving straight along the station's axis.

PS: What is meant by simulating "the Doppler Effect" in the attack? The graser beam's frequency is already so high that it will not change much based on movement.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:

penny wrote:However, it appears that the mechanics of accelerating and decelerating would be different for a spider-drive. As in inherently more efficient. When accelerating, a spider-drive has to continuously reach for a new purchase point ahead of the ship. Much like walking or crawling one has to put one foot ahead of the next, so forth and so on, on and on. But to stop -- much like what is depicted in cartoons, on the basketball court and for an ice skater -- one only has to stop both feet. Drag the feet, like what Fred Flintstone does when he just puts his feet down on the ground underneath the car.

When stopping, a spider-drive does not have to reach for a purchase point. It only has to drag its anchor as efficiently as it can. It can use the purchase points that are at the current position of the ship.

tlb wrote:So you don't like it when I agree with you about the dime?

There is no dragging of an anchor, if it does not grab the alpha wall then it has done nothing and there is no deceleration. There is no efficiency gain that depends on where it grabs (anyway, for all we know the heads are fixed and the ship or missile has to flip end for end to slow down - that is something for the author to explain). Either way the process is the same: grab, tug and repeat until the proper speed is obtained (either zero or max).

The picture that penny is painting is that the tractor does not have to push or pull on the hyperwall the way that it does on acceleration, it just has to extend and drag, like Fred Flintstone.

Of course, there's zero evidence that it can do that. Even if it can, there's little to say that it would even be more efficient: think of car ABS - Antilock Brake System. The Fred Flintstone manoeuvre is not the most efficient way of stopping, because the moment that you're dragging your feed or tires across the floor, the adherence goes down a lot. That means the friction force transmitted back to the vehicle to decelerate it is lesser. Just watch any motor racing you'd care to watch and see how locking up your tires usually implies going wide and losing time. Think also of a rake: you can move much more earth if you do it properly instead of dragging it over your lawn. Another example would be a mountain climber using pickaxes: they can haul themselves up and down if they stick those into the mountain face, but can they stop themselves from falling just by dragging those? I've only seen that in movies.

Moreover, even if that does slow down more, is it stealthy? Again the analogy with tires: when they lock up and drag, they turn some of the excess energy into sound waves and heat. So if the spider dragged on the hyperwall, would it be visible to gravitic sensors, or even EM ones? We can't be talking about a sudden deceleration from 0.6c to attack speed, let's say 0.2c in 30 seconds. That would be a 400,000 gravity manoeuvre, without wedges to provide a gravity sump to compensate. Not even hardware could withstand that for a full 30 seconds. And 30 seconds is a long time anyway for the defenders to get some sort of defence up.

Although interesting, I do not think any of that would apply. In fact, the opposite.

An automobile is never in danger of being overcome by the coefficient of friction. Slamming on the brakes even with oversized Bembo brakes and very wide tires will never result in damaging the vehicle. Moreover, an automobile’s stopping power always varies and depends on the condition of the road, tires and brakes.

A spider-drive’s available coefficient of friction will always be high enough to rip a hole in the ship, as well as rip out the tractors from the beginning of applying the brakes to the end. I don't think the exchange with the hyperwall would or could ever result in brake fade. Short of a malfunction in the system.

Actually, a spider-drive can stop on a dime (part of it anyway). Just not safely. Providing the brakes don't burn out. But the coefficient of friction of a spider-drive will always greatly exceed any need. The trick is to squeeze the most performance out of the brakes as possible. Pardon the pun.

All that an LD, certainly a g-torp, has to do is pull the emergency brake.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:

penny wrote:The GA knows about the 3-second grasers?

Sure. I'm sure someone had a chronometer when the graser torpedoes fired for 3 seconds.

Mission of Honor, ch. 30 wrote:"My own feeling, and Admiral Hemphill's tentative analysis supports the same conclusion, is that what we have to be looking at is some radically new propulsive system. The missiles used in this attack were essentially conventional weapons—variants on our own MDMs. Analysis of their maneuvers from the moment they brought their drivers up further suggests they were delivered in pods, probably coasted ballistically in to their launch points at a velocity of about point-two cee. The weapons that were used on the space stations were another case entirely. At this point, it looks like they were some sort of throwaway, disposable version of our own Shrikes, although nobody in Admiral Hemphill's shop has the least clue how Manpower—excuse me, how whoever launched this attack—managed to cram a weapon that powerful into a remote platform. Or how they gave its graser that sort of pulse endurance. For all intents and purposes, though, it's basically a longer-ranged version of our own Mistletoe, probably using whatever new drive technology their ships use instead of relying completely on stealth the way Mistletoe does."

I really missed that fact. Thanks for the textev. But where would that data or chronometer have come from? Everything in the g-torp's range was completely destroyed. Somehow I was under the impression that the RMN only knew that something very powerful was let loose on the system. But I didn't think they knew that it was a result of a longer duration firing weapon as opposed to a more powerful weapon. Who or what ship was close enough to see the weapon firing? Recall that text during the Byng incident stated that any energy weapon would not have been seen? Or is that, would have been seen?

penny wrote:I really missed that fact. Thanks for the textev. But where would that data or chronometer have come from? Everything in the g-torp's range was completely destroyed. Somehow I was under the impression that the RMN only knew that something very powerful was let loose on the system. But I didn't think they knew that it was a result of a longer duration firing weapon as opposed to a more powerful weapon. Who or what ship was close enough to see the weapon firing? Recall that text during the Byng incident stated that any energy weapon would not have been seen? Or is that, would have been seen?

All that is needed is for one of tugs (or any other ship in the vicinity) to record the beam slicing the length of an arm of a space station and that will measure the lapsed time of the slicing from beginning to end. The beam may not be seen, but the damage that it is doing certainly will be.

I hate leaving visible evidence of corrections
.