Detecting a spider drive ship

Hmm, It strikes me that the way a Spider Drive works it would set up a specific pattern of noise along the Alpha wall. People who are only generating crude signals along it such as Morse will not be able to detect that - think about how heavy and slow original radio equipement was that was only able to use such simplistic signalling modes. Now days our understanding of Radio is such that we squeeze much more data into the same frequency band but also have much better was of detecting signals buried in the noise.

So the Spider's walk would have a very clear frequency patten such that somebody doing a waterfall display of using Manti "Hypercom" tech as the detector would observe the pattern. Now localizing the signal is another matter. Too many descriptions here treat the wall as a 2D construct, a Solar System is 3D but the Hyperwall is probably something in yet another dimension - it can be crossed anywhere in 3D space but only safely outside the Hyperlimit (Where the background gravitic levels are low enough ?).
How far it can be detected will depend on the sensitivity of the Grav Comm receiver - well we know that Manicore are well ahead of everyone else here.

Hmm did the Spider Drive ships performing the Ywatta Strike create noise/ interferance in the Manticore Grav Comms while they were manouvering ? Probably. Obviously that was not significant enough to be recognised as what it was but are the recordings still in existance ? I doubt that they were logged only to the Spacestations but ....
Grayson would have had its own bunch of interfearence and the more dispersed structure of things there probably gives an even greater chance of the recordings surviving.

Now as things settle down but people are still trying to look at what happened will that be noticed ? Especially the Graser torps that used Spider Drive much closer to systems that were using GravComms.

An Omni directional "active spider" detector might not be useful to localize and track the Ship on it's own but could be tied to that sensor drone network such that it turns it on. Bit like a movement detector turning on the PIR light. Drones are quiesent until activated, reduces their power consumption and possibly extends their deployment life.

Switch to LH caught in the "spotlight" with no Gravitic defenses up and within Light range of an SD!

And Active Sensors create avoided zones where stealth ships don't go which means a secure path to the Hyperlimit can be cleaned enabling commerce to carry on where otherwise Spider Ships lurking in the outer area's could interdict a systems trade.

While ECCM and ECM are not detailed in the books it does exist. I am sure that both sides of the Haven Sector conflicts would have been looking at how to detect/intecept/deny Grav Comms. It is from that research that I would expect a Spider Detector to come from. Given how far behind Malign are in Grav comms I would expect them to be even further behind in this area.

Captain Golding wrote:Hmm, It strikes me that the way a Spider Drive works it would set up a specific pattern of noise along the Alpha wall. People who are only generating crude signals along it such as Morse will not be able to detect that - think about how heavy and slow original radio equipement was that was only able to use such simplistic signalling modes. Now days our understanding of Radio is such that we squeeze much more data into the same frequency band but also have much better was of detecting signals buried in the noise.

As the Mesan Alignment people could not create long range detectors for the spider drive, my guess is that the pattern is almost indistinguishable from white noise, and the amplitude (signal strength) is minimal compared to impellers, hyper prints, or intentionally created grav pulses for FTL communication.

Maybe comparable to arc welding. In very short distances, it may disturb other signals, but a few hundred meters away, it's barely measurable, and a few dozen kilometers away, nothing left against the background noise of the universe.

markusschaber wrote:

Captain Golding wrote:Hmm, It strikes me that the way a Spider Drive works it would set up a specific pattern of noise along the Alpha wall. People who are only generating crude signals along it such as Morse will not be able to detect that - think about how heavy and slow original radio equipement was that was only able to use such simplistic signalling modes. Now days our understanding of Radio is such that we squeeze much more data into the same frequency band but also have much better was of detecting signals buried in the noise.

As the Mesan Alignment people could not create long range detectors for the spider drive, my guess is that the pattern is almost indistinguishable from white noise, and the amplitude (signal strength) is minimal compared to impellers, hyper prints, or intentionally created grav pulses for FTL communication.

Maybe comparable to arc welding. In very short distances, it may disturb other signals, but a few hundred meters away, it's barely measurable, and a few dozen kilometers away, nothing left against the background noise of the universe.

I’d agree. Everybody had fairly sensitive sensors for seeing ripples along the alpha wall; used for detecting wedges and hyper transitions at long range. Those Warshaski sensors are perfectly capable to of seeing FTL grav coms pulses; to there point where it’s pointed out in one of the earlier books that even RMN ships that lack FTL coms transmitters can easily receive and decode the communications, just using their normal grav sensors.

Manticore developed some capability to make those transmissions directional, so they can transmit without revealing the position of say their ghost rider drones. But we’ve also seen them have to be careful about how they used FTL coms to avoid transmitting in the direction of an enemy; as that ship would detect them.

If the spider drive left that kind of signature, the MAlign would definitely know because their sensors would’ve seen it. It’s the grav com transmitter that’s special; to generate the necessary repetition rate and signal form; but the receivers are still just, AFAIK, standard Warshaski detectors.