Honorverse ramblings and musings

cthia wrote:

kzt wrote:David's garbage barge turn speeds has never made any sense to anyone other then David.

Thanks Jeff, Johnathan. I was confused. I can see clearly on some aspects thanks to the two of you, but even more confused on others.

If it takes twenty four minutes for an SD to complete a 180 degree turn (and it not alter the vector in that time) how in the universe does it perform maneuvers like "They are breaking off the attack sir!" ?

Well - if they're slowly turning away, that's breaking off the attack. But yeah, there's the canonical mention of those long, slow turning times, and there's actual texts of ships flipping around and building radically different vectors starting immediately. I got nothin' for reconciling that, and I'm usually the happiest person on the forum to make this stuff harmonize.

Now I do remember text stating something akin to "Their plot is slowly crabbing away." I'd think it would be more like "snailing" away.

That's consistent with the easy flip to start building a different vector. These ships have had hours to build up acceleration on a given vector. In a few minutes, the change they will make in that vector just isn't much - and if they've lost any accel, it'll be even less. They're still going very nearly as fast as they were in very nearly the same direction.

cthia wrote:

kzt wrote:David's garbage barge turn speeds has never made any sense to anyone other then David.

Thanks Jeff, Johnathan. I was confused. I can see clearly on some aspects thanks to the two of you, but even more confused on others.

If it takes twenty four minutes for an SD to complete a 180 degree turn (and it not alter the vector in that time) how in the universe does it perform maneuvers like "They are breaking off the attack sir!" ?

Well - if they're slowly turning away, that's breaking off the attack. But yeah, there's the canonical mention of those long, slow turning times, and there's actual texts of ships flipping around and building radically different vectors starting immediately. I got nothin' for reconciling that, and I'm usually the happiest person on the forum to make this stuff harmonize.

Now I do remember text stating something akin to "Their plot is slowly crabbing away." I'd think it would be more like "snailing" away.

JeffEngel wrote:That's consistent with the easy flip to start building a different vector. These ships have had hours to build up acceleration on a given vector. In a few minutes, the change they will make in that vector just isn't much - and if they've lost any accel, it'll be even less. They're still going very nearly as fast as they were in very nearly the same direction.

Indulge me please. I'm losing the war with stubborn anality and trying to reconcile it on my own - this particular impasse I'm sure many of you tech-heads have already rammed into. One more battered head won't matter. lol

As I said long before, in my book- just like the customer - the author is always right. We just have to trust him and figure it out for ourselves. Or not...

My first question from here is, what action actually begins the flip? Is it from varying the angle of the fore or aft wedge, or both simultaneously? If the angle of both wedges need varying then if one wedge is damaged then the roll would be slower? And, how long does it take for the roll to begin compared to the time to complete the roll?

To satisfy my own concerns of the vector of the ship not being altered during the full twenty four minute duration of an SD's wedge flipping script and the fact that the wedge cannot be turned off for the duration of the flip, consider this. Perhaps some of the nodes themselves are cut out during the process. Perhaps the alpha nodes, the beta nodes, or just part of the sixteen beta nodes. It seems plausible because losing nodes does not kill the wedge. Perhaps wedge strength fluctuates is all (which may be the tell tale sign to an enemy fleet indicating "they are flipping sir, preparing to decelerate." Didn't I read that once?)

One problem with this, is this. Even if there is adequate accel to be used for decel, if whatever mechanism that flips the ship fails or is severely damaged then the ship is a runaway because it can't flip? Although, I've never heard of a ship not being able to decel because it can't flip but because it has lost too many nodes, rings. Whatever.

I'm confident that the answer lies among these many colored legos.

You could use those thrusters that produce many gravities of thrust, to turn the ship. If you wanted to turn the ship without using the wedge.

cthia wrote:Indulge me please. I'm losing the war with stubborn anality and trying to reconcile it on my own - this particular impasse I'm sure many of you tech-heads have already rammed into. One more battered head won't matter. lol

As I said long before, in my book- just like the customer - the author is always right. We just have to trust him and figure it out for ourselves. Or not...

My first question from here is, what action actually begins the flip? Is it from varying the angle of the fore or aft wedge, or both simultaneously? If the angle of both wedges need varying then if one wedge is damaged then the roll would be slower? And, how long does it take for the roll to begin compared to the time to complete the roll?

To satisfy my own concerns of the vector of the ship not being altered during the full twenty four minute duration of an SD's wedge flipping script and the fact that the wedge cannot be turned off for the duration of the flip, consider this. Perhaps some of the nodes themselves are cut out during the process. Perhaps the alpha nodes, the beta nodes, or just part of the sixteen beta nodes. It seems plausible because losing nodes does not kill the wedge. Perhaps wedge strength fluctuates is all (which may be the tell tale sign to an enemy fleet indicating "they are flipping sir, preparing to decelerate." Didn't I read that once?)

One problem with this, is this. Even if there is adequate accel to be used for decel, if whatever mechanism that flips the ship fails or is severely damaged then the ship is a runaway because it can't flip? Although, I've never heard of a ship not being able to decel because it can't flip but because it has lost too many nodes, rings. Whatever.

I'm confident that the answer lies among these many colored legos.

First, the quote didn't actually say the ship's vector didn't change during the flip. It simply said that in 100 seconds it takes a DD to point her nose 90 degrees from the previous course that the vector hasn't moved as much as 90 degrees. It's likely moved some. But if you'd build building a forward vector for 30 minutes, but a side vector for less than 2 I assume you'd have deflected no more than a few degrees [size=85](though I admit to not having run the math this morning)[/i]. That vector deflection would be perfectly compatible with the quote.

But if you needed to not deflect the vector at all I seem to recall you can drop your accel to zero while still keeping the wedge up. (Not sure if you can use the wedge to change heading while doing so; but there's always reaction thrusters)

But more likely you can just overcorrect slightly to bring a deflected vector back pointing at the same destination. (Say you made a right hand 180 degree turn while under hard accel. Rather than stopping at 180 degrees (where the accumulated side vectors would have deflected your destination a bit to the right) continue to, say, 190-195 degrees and hold there until the "leftward" deflection accumulates enough to drag your vector back on original target.
Though more likely than that for a zero-zero with a planet would be that the ship's computers calculated a course that anticipated any deflection from a powered flip turn so the deflection from your original course actually ended up deflecting your vector to exactly where you wanted to go.



As for your damaged wedge question we've seen no evidence (that I can recall) that it's possible to asymetrically damage wedge planes. The entire wedge, both planes, is somehow generated out of the combined impeller rings. Damage to the rings appears to symmetrically weaken the wedge. So you never (as far as we know) end up with the ventral wedge plane capable of more power than the dorsal one.

cthia wrote:

kzt wrote:David's garbage barge turn speeds has never made any sense to anyone other then David.

Thanks Jeff, Johnathan. I was confused. I can see clearly on some aspects thanks to the two of you, but even more confused on others.

If it takes twenty four minutes for an SD to complete a 180 degree turn (and it not alter the vector in that time) how in the universe does it perform maneuvers like "They are breaking off the attack sir!" ?

Well - if they're slowly turning away, that's breaking off the attack. But yeah, there's the canonical mention of those long, slow turning times, and there's actual texts of ships flipping around and building radically different vectors starting immediately. I got nothin' for reconciling that, and I'm usually the happiest person on the forum to make this stuff harmonize.

Now I do remember text stating something akin to "Their plot is slowly crabbing away." I'd think it would be more like "snailing" away.

JeffEngel wrote:That's consistent with the easy flip to start building a different vector. These ships have had hours to build up acceleration on a given vector. In a few minutes, the change they will make in that vector just isn't much - and if they've lost any accel, it'll be even less. They're still going very nearly as fast as they were in very nearly the same direction.

Perhaps Jeff, note that I did say perhaps, I have solved the contradiction in flip times. Perhaps it has to do with the consideration of a single ship or a few ships significantly separated that has no concern for interacting wedges as opposed to ships in a wall of battle that has to flip carefully, as seemingly inferred by this line...

"The rate of turn for an impeller-drive ship outside a wall of battle is fairly high, although it is considerably higher for a smaller ship than for a larger one."

kzt wrote:You could use those thrusters that produce many gravities of thrust, to turn the ship. If you wanted to turn the ship without using the wedge.

Certainly makes much sense kzt, for the ships to use the thrusters to perform the maneuver to change heading. After all, they are called "attitude thrusters" aren't they?

That one blew right by me somehow, on stealth. Doh!

Fundamentally it's plot. Napoleonic sailing ships took a long time to turn around, so therefore...

One other question. When a ship goes from a low speed to "pouring on the accel" what exactly is the gas pedal, the activation of the Alpha nodes or just channeling more power to the Alpha nodes? Or something else?

Edit sp.

.

cthia wrote:One other question. When a ship goes from a low speed to "pouring on the accel" what exactly is the gas peddle, the activation of the Alpha nodes or just channeling more power to the Alpha nodes? Or something else?

More power. The nodes have to be active for there to be a wedge at all.

munroburton wrote:More power. The nodes have to be active for there to be a wedge at all.

It also involves changing the angle of the fields IIRC.