What's the chance of a Streek Drive Super Dreadnought?

JohnRoth wrote:Uh, guys, before going on about how easy it is going to be to duplicate it, please consider:

Mission of Honor, chapter 4 wrote:The streak drive represented a fundamental advance in interstellar travel, and there was no indication anyone else was even close to duplicating it. For centuries, the theta bands had represented an inviolable ceiling for hyper-capable ships. Everyone had known it was theoretically possible to go even higher, attain a still higher apparent normal-space velocity, yet no one had ever managed to design a ship which could crack the iota wall and survive. Incredible amounts of research had been invested in efforts to do just that, especially in the earlier days of hyper travel, but with a uniform lack of success. In the last few centuries, efforts to beat the iota barrier had waned, until the goal had been pretty much abandoned as one of those theoretically possible but practically unobtainable concepts.

But the Mesan Alignment hadn't abandoned it, and finally, after the better part of a hundred T-years of dogged research, they'd found the answer. It was, in many ways, a brute force approach, and it wouldn't have been possible even now without relatively recent advances (whose potential no one else seemed to have noticed) in related fields. And even with those other advances, it had almost doubled the size of conventional hyper generators. But it worked. Indeed, they'd broken not simply the iota wall, but the kappa wall, as well. Which meant the voyage from New Tuscany to Mesa, which would have taken anyone else the next best thing to forty-five T-days, had taken Anisimovna less than thirty-one.

Also, Dr. Simoes has never dealt with the streak drive hardware. He's a pure math-jockey hyper-physicist. I'm not even sure he knows it's twice the size of a conventional hyper-drive.

I doubt that it is going to take a century to duplicate the Streak Drive. Just knowing it's possible will cut most of the R&D time and having the Math needed is another big boost.

I don't think a GS Streak is going to be ready as quick as others assume, so the first and maybe second build cycle out of Bolthole is going to arrive without Streak Drives which is going to put everything for the next couple of years into the "can it be retrofitted" category.

JohnRoth wrote:Uh, guys, before going on about how easy it is going to be to duplicate it, please consider:

*Snip*

Also, Dr. Simoes has never dealt with the streak drive hardware. He's a pure math-jockey hyper-physicist. I'm not even sure he knows it's twice the size of a conventional hyper-drive.

Oh I'm not trying to say accomplishing it the first time was easy... But knowing something is possible is a huge chunk of the battle... The rest of humanity gave up on breaking the highest (known) wall as a theoretically possible, practically impossible thing. But what one man can do, another can do.

And Simoes was the project leader working on the next generation streak drive i seem to recall, so he should be able to fill in pretty much all the gaps Manticore might stumble across in trying to replicate it. Assuming he didnt draw up some blueprints in the months spent drifting while they repaired their hypergenerator... Between the time spent playing cards and sleeping that is.

And where does it say he was pure math and had never touched the hardware? I seem to recall a couple jokes about him being another Shannon Foraker and how he is almost worthless for any information outside his wheelhouse. Mesan plans/politics/anything else really... But inside that wheelhouse he is brilliant, and he was creating the next generation drive, not just crunching some numbers for someone else. Again, as far as i remember.

Tenshinai wrote:

Weird Harold wrote:They can be retrofitted faster and cheaper than SDs

Says who? The smaller the ship, the less extra volume you have to work with and the harder it is to include something that you may have trouble specifying exact size for.

Says just about everyone except you. The problem with retrofitting is SDs is armor and cofferdams. If necessary, a dispatch boat can be cut in half and a plug inserted -- although that doesn't appear to have been necessary for Malign Dispatch Boats.

Tenshinai wrote:

Weird Harold wrote:and can make better use of the increased speed.

Bullshit.

Pottymouth!


The MAlign seems to get a lot of benefit from its streak drive dispatch boats and it should be obvious that getting scouting reports while they're still relatively current would be useful.

Tenshinai wrote:

Weird Harold wrote:IOW, there won't be any retrofits of SDs.

Unless the drives turn out not nearly as large as expected, there will few or no retrofits period.

Dispatch boats can give up a cabin or two and destroyers and light cruisers an energy weapon or two. For couriers, and scouts, the increased speed more than offsets combat capability they don't have or aren't supposed to use.

Tenshinai wrote:Pricetag of the streakdrive will be of zero importance.

It isn't the pricetag of the drive, it is the pricetag of a new SD to put it in. Unless you're building a new SD for some other reason -- more firepower, better defenses, better survivability, etc -- the streak drive doesn't add enough new ability to offset the cost of a new ship.

Weird Harold wrote:Unless the space requirement and those unknown "other advances in unrelated fields" can be predicted well enough to build in retrofit capability, those Bolthole Specials for Haven and Beowulf aren't going to get Streak Drives because they'll probably be in service before the GA is through with R&D. By the time a Streak Drive is available Beowulf, Haven, and Manticore will have made even more substantial investment in Slow SDs which may or may not be upgradeable.

We know the streak drive is roughly double the size of a standard drive... Any ship still at an early stage of construction could be modified to double or a touch more of the space required. Thus you are sure you have room to upgrade down the road... You don't always have to make an entire new generation just for an upgrade, as long as you plan on upgrading from the start.

The Mars class havenite ship had massivly overpowered impeller nodes built in, because they expected to eventually capture a new model compensator, reverse engineer it, and then they were planning on upgrading to take advantage of the extra brute impeller strength.

Every ships is upgraded/retrofitted with new hardware whenever possible, sometimes to the point of crowding the existing hardware. And they also design in extra space just for the possibility of upgrades down the road. Not to the point of doubling your space requirements but still the point stands.

Weird Harold wrote:The consensus seems to be that Upgrades to SDs are impractical because of armoring and coffer-damming -- much the same argument given why the captured SLN SDs aren't worth anything.

Uh...
1) the fact that we are arguing tends to rule out a consensus
2) the Solly ships would have required upgrading pretty much everything. That is what made it impractical.
3)We Know that SD's can be retrofitted and upgraded... they talk about why they hadn't upgraded home fleet from keyhole 1 to keyhole 2 before the battle of manticore in the books. How it was something they wanted to do, but couldnt afford to do, at that time.

Weird Harold wrote:As noted several times, the armoring and coffer-damming of SDs make an upgrade impractical -- unless the GA version isn't twice as big as existing Hyper-generators.

See point 2 and 3 above.

Weird Harold wrote:The problem with retrofitting is SDs is armor and cofferdams. If necessary, a dispatch boat can be cut in half and a plug inserted -- although that doesn't appear to have been necessary for Malign Dispatch Boats.

Ugg... They carved their way thru the top of the original Nike because it was easier than going thru the armor on the sides when they had to replace a generator that couldn't fit out thru any existing doors. Upgrades and repairs are allways possible. The question is if it would be cheaper to repair or replace. With solly SD's the answer is to scrap them. With a current gen SD(P) you cant say for sure one way or the other.

Weird Harold wrote:

Tenshinai wrote:Bullshit.

Pottymouth!


The MAlign seems to get a lot of benefit from its streak drive dispatch boats and it should be obvious that getting scouting reports while they're still relatively current would be useful.

Hah, agree to the first part, the second part however...

Yes they will build dispatch boats with the drive, and it might even be one of their prototype testbeds. But the streak drive doesn't break the 70-80% light speed limit military grade particle screens impose. So dispatch boats would hit their max speed faster than an SD, but they still both would have the same max speed once they reach it... So yes, building a bunch of dispatch boats with streak drives is an important goal, but it wont be their only goal.
And larger ships have more room to upgrade/modify instead of having to be built from scratch like a dispatch boat would be. Although a dispatch boat is so small/simple im sure they could crank the bastards out in a fraction of the time even a retrofit on a SD would take.

Chyort wrote:So yes, building a bunch of dispatch boats with streak drives is an important goal, but it wont be their only goal.

I have never said that couriers, scouts, and commerce raiders were the ONLY ships that need Streak Drives. I said they should get Streak Drives FIRST because the flow of information is more time sensitive than the flow of missiles.

Weird Harold wrote:

Chyort wrote:So yes, building a bunch of dispatch boats with streak drives is an important goal, but it wont be their only goal.

I have never said that couriers, scouts, and commerce raiders were the ONLY ships that need Streak Drives. I said they should get Streak Drives FIRST because the flow of information is more time sensitive than the flow of missiles.

The reason they have dispatch boats isn't for the hours/days they shave off transit times because of their acceleration advantage... it is because they can build hundreds if not thousands of them for the same price as a SD. Which means their SD's are not stuck in transit trying to deliver messages.

If for some reason they have to pick between using a streak drive on a courier boat, or an SD(P)... I have a sneaking suspicion they will pick the SD(P) every time. Because it can also bring harm to the enemy that much faster in addition to messages.

I don't know why they would hit that kind of a bottleneck though. I assume they would do both at the same time.

Chyort wrote:I don't know why they would hit that kind of a bottleneck though. I assume they would do both at the same time.

It takes years to build a SD, it takes months to build a DB. It also takes billions to build SDs vs millions to build DBs.

The MAlign makes extensive use of Streak Dispatch boats and "yachts" because they get inside the information loop of their opponents. Nearly every mention of the Streak Drive emphasizes the "40% faster than anyone else could" or "days before the rest of the universe found out." It is most certainly the reduced transit times that make Streak-DBs more valuable than Slow-DBs.

Which means their SD's are not stuck in transit trying to deliver messages.

When have you seen an SD used as a messenger in the Honorverse?

An SD would be the very last choice to use as a messenger because SDs travel with a screening element of smaller ships that can reach the hyper limit faster and therefore arrive anywhere sooner than an SD. Almost any military ship can deliver a message faster than an SD and there are almost always other ships around to use as messengers.

If for some reason they have to pick between using a streak drive on a courier boat, or an SD(P)... I have a sneaking suspicion they will pick the SD(P) every time. Because it can also bring harm to the enemy that much faster in addition to messages.

I think you underestimate the value of information and the speedy flow of information. Couriers and Scouts need to be the fastest thing in space or hyper-space. If they don't move information as fast as possible, you have no idea when, where, or if to move your SDs.

Harold,

Am I reading you right to say while you are against retrofitting currently existing SDPs, you have no objection to streak drives in new SDPs, presuming they are a part of the design for the ship rather than just being improvised as an add on?

I think you are right about the high demand for light combatants as long as the League is the main opponent since the League has no way of matching GA hardware and probably won't survive long enough to develop it.

Don

n7axw wrote:Am I reading you right to say while you are against retrofitting currently existing SDPs, you have no objection to streak drives in new SDPs, presuming they are a part of the design for the ship rather than just being improvised as an add on?

Very close.

I don't think retrofitting currently existing SDs is practical nor does it add sufficient capability to be economical.

I don't have any objection to Streak Drives in any SD as long as the streak drive is not the sole reason for modification or new build.

For example: If the difference between an Invictus and Invictus-B is only the Streak Drive, then whoever built the Invictus-B wasted their money because they didn't do anything to address the known deficiencies in the operational Invictus ships.

Weird Harold wrote:

Chyort wrote:I don't know why they would hit that kind of a bottleneck though. I assume they would do both at the same time.

It takes years to build a SD, it takes months to build a DB. It also takes billions to build SDs vs millions to build DBs.

The MAlign makes extensive use of Streak Dispatch boats and "yachts" because they get inside the information loop of their opponents. Nearly every mention of the Streak Drive emphasizes the "40% faster than anyone else could" or "days before the rest of the universe found out." It is most certainly the reduced transit times that make Streak-DBs more valuable than Slow-DBs.

Again, your stuck on the fact that they would have to build SD(P) from scratch to take advantage of a streak drive and that might not be the case. As i repeatedly pointed out...
All ships have been upgraded/retrofitted to some extent...
The only question is if it is cheaper to start from scratch or if it is worth upgrading... Solly SD's are not worth upgrading everything, thus they weren't upgraded. You Cannot assume the same of current gen SD(P) that only need one upgraded part(A huge part, true, but still only one)

If they are bulk producing streak drives then it only makes sense to put them in both dispatch boats and SD(P) as fast as they can... Not one or the other.
If they are limited on Streak drives, then it makes sense that they put it in the ship that is the most versatile. Which means they would put it in a SD(P) that can carry messages almost as fast if the time is truly critical, and can carry missiles that much faster the rest of the time.

Weird Harold wrote:When have you seen an SD used as a messenger in the Honorverse?

An SD would be the very last choice to use as a messenger because SDs travel with a screening element of smaller ships that can reach the hyper limit faster and therefore arrive anywhere sooner than an SD. Almost any military ship can deliver a message faster than an SD and there are almost always other ships around to use as messengers.

*Eyeroll and a heavy sigh*
1) i didnt say SD's were used as messengers... i said if i had to pick between giving a SD(P) a drive OR a dispatch boat, i would pick the SD(P) because if a message was truly that time critical the SD(P) could be sent almost as fast. And the rest of the time it would be that much faster carrying missles.
2) The travel time between ships with equal hyper generators is relatively small. Because of the max sustained speed they can hold. And it is repeatedly noted throughout the books that the brass isn't customarily woken up when critical messages are received, because it is still going to take weeks/months to get a reply back. Meaning again, hours don't matter.
3) SD's have traveled in singles and pairs fairly often in the honorverse... Mostly joining a fleet or going to get repaired. But it does happen.
4) If a SD had a streak drive, and If you had a message that was so mission critical that days mattered, you could dispatch it to carry the message. The rest of the time it would be carrying missiles, and causing far more harm to the enemy... Thus, the SD(P) is far more versatile than a dispatch boat with the same drive. IF there was a bottleneck on drive production.
(Bolded to point out a hypothetical argument)

Weird Harold wrote:I think you underestimate the value of information and the speedy flow of information. Couriers and Scouts need to be the fastest thing in space or hyper-space. If they don't move information as fast as possible, you have no idea when, where, or if to move your SDs.

I am starting to think you are simply trolling.

I never said information wasn't valuable, or even critical. My argument has been from the start that
1) If at all possible SD(P) will be retrofitted to include the streak drive because, with a hopefully small upgrade, you effectively double your offensive power. And SD's CAN be retrofitted and upgraded. Despite the fact that Manticore chose not upgrade the captured solly SD's. And it has nothing to do with the armor being too hard to get past. Because the top/bottom of the ship is effectively unarmored. It has everything to do with cost/reward. Or put another way if it is cheaper to upgrade or replace.
2) I never said dont make new dispatch boats to take advantage of the streak drive, i said do both at the same time. Unless you are limited on streak drives, then put them in SD(P)
3) I really do think your trolling, or just not bothering to read. In which case this number will be totally ignored so you can continue to rant about things taken out of context.
4) What the heck, why not add another number just for fun.
5) When your SD(P) are so far ahead of the enemy, where you decide to place and use them are effectively entirely up to you. The Enemy's position is relatively unimportant, at least defensively... Even if they sent the entire battle fleet in one massive wave, the existing defensive structure would suffice to stop them. So being able to move your SD(P) committed to offensive operations from target to target faster would be more important most of the time than having a dispatch boat getting a battle report back to the brass days or weeks sooner, when every battle report is basically "We won without taking any damage. The End." That is not to say some critical message couldn't appear, simply that the vast majority of messages wouldn't be significantly affected by the transit times compared to an SD(P) that is able to hit that many extra targets because of the speed bonus.

Assuming of course, you are limited on the number of streak drives you have available, for some unknown reason. Which, i think is unlikely assuming your able to build them at all.