?

penny wrote:

tlb wrote:2) As the distance to the purchase point increases (as the ship or missile moves past), then the grip weakens until it can no longer hold on. In order to come to a stop, then you have to continually grab at new points.

Neither of the two notions happen.

1. The distance to the purchase point is never increasing when decelerating. Visualize sliding your hand down the rail coming down the stairs in your home. The distance from you and your hand to the railing never increases. When accelerating, by necessity the purchase points are always further ahead. (Possibly as long a stride as possible). When decelerating, the tractors can simply grab the rails (hyperwall) that are closest to it. I'm simply proposing that since the mechanics are different and the efficiency of the process is different, then it might be possible to eke out more performance from the braking system. Completely new technology opens up completely new possibilities.

Jonathan_S wrote:But that requires a) your hand to be able to slip along the rail

Ones hand does slip along the rail. It is sliding all the time. It is a nasty habit I never engage in when moving down the nasty rails that cordon off people in a line who are preparing to order their food in a restaurant, but yeah.

Jonathan_S wrote: and b) your arm to be able to work in compression as you push against the rail.

The arm does work in compression if one loses ones balance and is falling laterally towards the rail. But the notion does not apply to this discussion at all.

Jonathan_S wrote:It's not at all clear that when the spider drive grabs against the hyper wall that that grab point can slip. That may be why each projector has to cycle so frequently, releasing one grab point and grabbing another further out.

True, lacking textev, we do not know. However, I personally think that it can slip and slide. Gravity is just so frigging manageable in the HV. But it is a moot point because of the close proximity of the hyperwall, that even if the pulses (grabs) must still come in microbursts, the close proximity will allow for the reconnection to be made so quickly that for all intents and purposes it is constant.

However, my own guess as to why the spider-drive has to continually let go and grab again is mere physics. Even a rowing team quickly outruns the grab point of the paddles in the water. But also because of physics and efficiency they stretch the paddle as far as possible before dipping it into the water to maximize the effect. To pull yourself along, your purchase point must always be ahead. Like Spiderman shooting web. And I am certain even a slow spider-drive overtakes its purchase point very quickly while accelerating.

Jonathan_S wrote:And it's also not at all clear that a drive built like an over-powered tractor beam is capable of pressing. Trying to slow down by grabbing a point ahead of you might be like trying to slow yourself by pushing on a rope -- doesn't work because the rope effectively only transmits tension, not compression.

Why do you need to grab a point ahead of you? That just isn't true. In fact, it is a natural survival instinct to reach out and grab the closest object near you. It is a trait found even in an infant. When stumbling or falling, as you sometimes do when traversing stairs, you instinctively reach for the closest object possible! Even another person. As I said, toddlers have that instinctive survival technique built into their DNA as well.

Jonathan_S wrote:Tlb seemed to be assuming that the spider only works in tension (which I also tend to assume). So to slow down you'd have to grab a point behind you,

Why? Why not simply grab the point on the rails that is closer to you? Especially in an emergency. Extending the tractor beam wastes time and energy needlessly grabbing at a point further away. Moreover, if a tractor beam can be seen by any sensors that are close to you, then you'd want to keep your arms as close to the body as possible.

Jonathan_S wrote: and apply force by pulling on it as the tractor beam stretch while you moved away from the grab point.

Force is applied as soon as you grab the closest point on the hyperwall because the speed of the warship or g-torp overtakes the grab point immediately.

Jonathan_S wrote:(You'd then, presumably, need to quickly release and grab a new point closer to you and repeat the process -- each grab from each drive projector implying a brief force that collectively works to cancel out your base velocity)

Yes! The truth is in your own words. You need to grab a point closer to you. What's even better is to grab the point closest to you. Which would be the same for a spider-drive as it is for a train. The point on the rails of a train which are the closest is where the train actually sits.

Very late edit: To be clear, each tractor is reaching out and grabbing the wall closest to it. Therefore, there are as many overpowered Brembo brakes as there are tractors.

Jonathan_S wrote:Even if the graser itself was undetectable, it's described as slicing along the station -- the sensors would easily be able to see that continuous slice. And after the first instant the gasified bits of station structure would make that end of the beam visible to sensors as well.

And the beam emitting platform is also visible at that time. It's putting out a lot of energy while converting its massive stored power into a gamma-ray laser, so it has completely lost its stealth. The fact that it didn't fry itself for 3 seconds is rather obvious.

However going back and looking at the Byng incident the remote platform that Tristram had left had a good enough view that Mike was able to confidently state that the three DD were destroyed "at pointblank range, by the massed energy fire of seventeen Solarian battlecruisers and eight destroyers" -- so presumably it showed enough info to determine that all of them had fired and it wasn't just Byng's flagship that killed them.
(Don't know whether it could see the beams, could see discharge or energy readings from the laser/graser mounts themselves, or just see the differing angles of impact on the DD and their debris -- but whatever the case that same level or detection at Manticore would be able to easily tell that the g-torp's graser beam lasted far, far, longer than normal.

Very similar case: the GRs can see the energy spikes coming from all the ships. They can't tell if all the beams hit, or if the Sollies aboard Byng's task force had worse aim than Imperial Stormtroopers. But they can tell who fired.

penny wrote: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!

Ok, I forgot the .23c speed of the g-torps.
On the other hand, a grazer fired by as ship moving some good fraction of C at another ship heading at differnt speed (mind, both ships are probably acclerating) is a "discharge and done" till it recharges. Your firing at where a moving target is calculated to be when the burst from the light speed energy weapon gets there. The key is both the weapon and the target are moving. Can the weapons's controlling systems adjust fast enough to hold a 3 second burst on even the target ship let alone the same spot that it hit. Not sure it would be like slicing open a gutted fish.

penny wrote:However, my own guess as to why the spider-drive has to continually let go and grab again is mere physics. Even a rowing team quickly outruns the grab point of the paddles in the water. But also because of physics and efficiency they stretch the paddle as far as possible before dipping it into the water to maximize the effect. To pull yourself along, your purchase point must always be ahead. Like Spiderman shooting web. And I am certain even a slow spider-drive overtakes its purchase point very quickly while accelerating.

Rowing is another good counter-example: you row to accelerate yourself and you can just dip the oars into the water to decelerate. But:

a) is that a faster deceleration than rowing against your current velocity vector? I think not. It requires less energy from the rowers to just dip the oars, but it doesn't decelerate as fast.

b) is it less stealthy? The dipping of the oars produces very turbulent water behind the canoe, beyond that which the canoe itself is producing. So, I still think that by all the analogies so far, raking the hyperwall with the spider is going to produce a very detectable footprint, at least within a few light-seconds.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:

penny wrote:However, my own guess as to why the spider-drive has to continually let go and grab again is mere physics. Even a rowing team quickly outruns the grab point of the paddles in the water. But also because of physics and efficiency they stretch the paddle as far as possible before dipping it into the water to maximize the effect. To pull yourself along, your purchase point must always be ahead. Like Spiderman shooting web. And I am certain even a slow spider-drive overtakes its purchase point very quickly while accelerating.

Rowing is another good counter-example: you row to accelerate yourself and you can just dip the oars into the water to decelerate. But:

is that a faster deceleration than rowing against your current velocity vector? I think not. It requires less energy from the rowers to just dip the oars, but it doesn't decelerate as fast.

b) is it less stealthy? The dipping of the oars produces very turbulent water behind the canoe, beyond that which the canoe itself is producing. So, I still think that by all the analogies so far, raking the hyperwall with the spider is going to produce a very detectable footprint, at least within a few light-seconds.

Yes, it is! Remember, in the case of the spider-drive the coefficient of friction will always be infinite. There is no need to back-paddle to try and create more. In fact, we all initially worried about ripping a hole in the ship. That's why we need to pulse the brakes. We simply need to safely harness the stopping power that is created and already exists because of the grab factor of the "brake pads" produced by the oversized Brembo brakes.

Also, if the friction that is created (or the 'resistance' if the term better appeases tlb) creates any energy as a by-product, heat, etc., it will happen in hyper and it will be left in hyper where the wall is. If not, then the process would also likewise cause a problem during the emergency change of vectors; i.e., evasive maneuvers.

penny wrote:Yes, it is! Remember, in the case of the spider-drive the coefficient of friction will always be infinite.

Says who? All the analogies we've discussed don't have that. There's nothing in the HV that is of infinite magnitude: nothing is indestructible, nothing has infinite energy, nothing is instantaneous.

Also, if the friction that is created (or the 'resistance' if the term better appeases tlb) creates any energy as a by-product, heat, etc., it will happen in hyper and it will be left in hyper where the wall is. If not, then the process would also likewise cause a problem during the emergency change of vectors; i.e., evasive maneuvers.

Also not a given. Everything in the HV happens in the hyperband that the ship is in or arrives in.

You're trying to come up with justifications for why this could exist. That's fair, you can do that. But I don't think RFC wants to go into this direction at all; he seems to think the MAlign has such a superior hand now that he needs more novels to balance the scales.

penny wrote:Yes, it is! Remember, in the case of the spider-drive the coefficient of friction will always be infinite. There is no need to back-paddle to try and create more. In fact, we all initially worried about ripping a hole in the ship. That's why we need to pulse the brakes. We simply need to safely harness the stopping power that is created and already exists because of the grab factor of the "brake pads" produced by the oversized Brembo brakes.

Also, if the friction that is created (or the 'resistance' if the term better appeases tlb) creates any energy as a by-product, heat, etc., it will happen in hyper and it will be left in hyper where the wall is. If not, then the process would also likewise cause a problem during the emergency change of vectors; i.e., evasive maneuvers.

A coefficient of friction normally varies between zero and one (one being where the force trying to move an object held down by the force of gravity just picks that object up. The only way it could be infinite would be if we were talking about the fabled immovable object)). But it does not matter because the spider drive does NOT depend on resistance or friction; instead it grabs the Alpha wall and pulls, then repeats. We know this because the author said so in Mission of Honor:

Chapter 28 wrote:No single beam would have been of any particular use. Powerful as it might be, it was less than a shadow compared to the output of even a single one of any starship's beta nodes, far less an alpha node. It wasn't even enough to produce the "ripple" along the hyper-space wall which Manticore used for its FTL communications technology. But it did lock onto the wall, and that provided the ship which mounted it a purchase point in deep space—one which was always available, anywhere, in any direction. And when dozens of those beams were combined, reaching out, locking onto the alpha wall and pulling in micro-spaced bursts, they produced something that was very useful, indeed.

So there is no friction and no heat on the Alpha wall.

tlb wrote:

penny wrote:Yes, it is! Remember, in the case of the spider-drive the coefficient of friction will always be infinite. There is no need to back-paddle to try and create more. In fact, we all initially worried about ripping a hole in the ship. That's why we need to pulse the brakes. We simply need to safely harness the stopping power that is created and already exists because of the grab factor of the "brake pads" produced by the oversized Brembo brakes.

Also, if the friction that is created (or the 'resistance' if the term better appeases tlb) creates any energy as a by-product, heat, etc., it will happen in hyper and it will be left in hyper where the wall is. If not, then the process would also likewise cause a problem during the emergency change of vectors; i.e., evasive maneuvers.

A coefficient of friction normally varies between zero and one (one being where the force trying to move an object held down by the force of gravity just picks that object up. The only way it could be infinite would be if we were talking about the fabled immovable object)). But it does not matter because the spider drive does NOT depend on resistance or friction; instead it grabs the Alpha wall and pulls, then repeats. We know this because the author said so in Mission of Honor:

Chapter 28 wrote:No single beam would have been of any particular use. Powerful as it might be, it was less than a shadow compared to the output of even a single one of any starship's beta nodes, far less an alpha node. It wasn't even enough to produce the "ripple" along the hyper-space wall which Manticore used for its FTL communications technology. But it did lock onto the wall, and that provided the ship which mounted it a purchase point in deep space—one which was always available, anywhere, in any direction. And when dozens of those beams were combined, reaching out, locking onto the alpha wall and pulling in micro-spaced bursts, they produced something that was very useful, indeed.

So there is no friction and no heat on the Alpha wall.

All that is needed to know about the coefficient of friction is that the higher the value the better the stopping power and the lower the stopping distance. The lower the value the less the stopping power and the greater the stopping distance. A low value comes as a result of wet, oily or greasy pavement. Or gravel. Or brake fade due to overheated brakes or worn pads.

But no factor that can cause a low coefficient of friction will ever exist for a spider-drive's braking system. Like I said, there will never be any danger of brake fade from the moment the emergency brake is pulled until the ship comes to a full stop. As a matter of fact, recall how everyone of us at one time or another pulled a prank by slamming on the brakes at a low speed, causing one to spill their drink, lose a topping or two on their ice-cream cone etc.? Well, in a spider-drive ship, serious damage can probably still be done at a very low speed. There should be a point where a spider-drive can stop on a dime.

Huh? Pulling creates resistance. Ever participated in a tug of war?

I fail to see how that passage changes anything.

penny wrote:Huh? Pulling creates resistance. Ever participated in a tug of war?

I fail to see how that passage changes anything.

Where exactly is this resistance? It is not in the Alpha wall, because by the author's words the tractor beam will "lock onto the wall". It is not in the ship or missile, which is just floating in space (you write as though it was sitting on sand paper). The only resistance is inertial, which is NOT friction. Your are basing your argument on a bad analogy. A "tug of war" is another bad analogy.

OMG you people are arguing semantics. For all intents and purposes, as far as this conversation is concerned, the coefficient of friction/resistance is infinite if it always has the ability to rip the ship apart at any point if the brakes are not pulsed. The wedges are not infinite either but I sure can't tell. Tlb says there is no resistance then he goes on to say that the only resistance is inertial.

On the one hand everyone agrees the interaction can rip a hole in the ship or rip the tractors out. On the other hand you post that the interaction pulls the ship forward. Then you question whether there is any resistance. Well, I suppose not if instead of ripping a hole in the ship the hyper wall is ripped right out of hyperspace.

This is why I refuse to argue my point that the GA’s arrogant and disrespectful attack on Galton was no different than the SLN’s attack on the MBS. Just like I said, as soon as Adebayo announced Galton was part of the Alignment Honor began making unacceptable demands. Then someone posted that exact truth.

“But Adebayo didn't say Galton wasn't who they were looking for.” Oh please! And Galton shouldn't have had to, should they. Innocent until proven guilty. But Honor didn't ask either, did she.

What happened to sending a peaceful mission of a few ships to Galton to ask questions and to give the suspects a respectful chance to cooperate. What proud and innocent navy wants to be forced to cooperate?* The GA insulted and disrespectful Galton by bringing every ship in the known Galaxy into their front yard. Any proud navy may be prepared to fight then. Same faux pas the SLN committed.

* Is the reason the GA didn't send a peaceful and respectful mission to Galton first because they were afraid that Galton would do to their disrespectful messengers what King Leonidas did to the disrespectful messenger sent by the Persians?

“This is Sparta!”

https://youtu.be/T15V22CcYPg?feature=shared

Fear is no excuse for a lack of manners.

Let the alliance of Russia, China and North Korea park as large a fleet in Cuba and see how you feel about it then. But then, I shouldn't be surprised at the incredulity of it all, should I?