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

Weird Harold wrote:

JohnRoth wrote:Fleet train (ammo, supply, etc.) ships are always supplied with military hyper generators, particle shields and inertial compensators exactly so they can keep up. This is spelled out somewhere in the books.

Yep, fleet train needs to be upgraded to Streak Drive if you're going to upgrade to Streak Drive across the board. Nobody has asserted any opinion on where they should be prioritized. IMHO, they should be ahead of SDs and possible even ahead of battle cruisers.

With the exception of ammunition colliers, the rest of the fleet train only goes with SDs, so that gives you an idea of where they need to be in the priority list. Ammunition colliers, of course, go with other major deployments and are also needed for regular station resupplies, so they need to be fairly early in the priority queue.

Weird Harold wrote:

JohnRoth wrote:Wrong. The advanced inertial compensator is the reason why Manticoran SDs are as big as they are with the acceleration figures they have. A regular mil-spec inertial compensator on a ship that size would have truly pitiful acceleration.

A quick look at House of Steel and comparing the Sphinx and Gryphon class SDs (old compensators) with the Medusa and Invictus class pod SDs will show you the difference.

Medusa and Invictus SD(P)s would be big no matter how efficient their compensators are. The size increase has far more to do with combat capability than it does tactical speed.

The improved compensator gave them both combat capability and acceleration but combat capability is the trump card.

Warship design is always a game of tradeoffs --- you can never have everything you want in a usable ship. See the US Navy's new littoral (coastal) defense ship as an example of "white knight" syndrome. Would the RMN have made the podnaughts as big as they did if the size had come at a significant cost in acceleration? It's hard to say, but I'd do the tradeoff the other way. Only RFC knows for sure.

Wierd Harold, Chyort - the first law of dealing with trolls is to ignore them. The rest of the forumites (at least, those who care) have pretty much come to a conclusion as to who's wearing cavalry boots so they can ride their hobby horse into the ground.

JohnRoth wrote:the first law of dealing with trolls is to ignore them.

That sdvice hasn't changed since "Trolls" were called "Twits" and Ignore lists were called "Twit Filters."

Michael Everett wrote:Waiting for more amusement...

JohnRoth wrote:Wierd Harold, Chyort - the first law of dealing with trolls is to ignore them. The rest of the forumites (at least, those who care) have pretty much come to a conclusion as to who's wearing cavalry boots so they can ride their hobby horse into the ground.

Most of the time i am content to "Don't feed the trolls."
Problem arises though when i'm not sure if they are trolling or just not understanding

I do admit though, once in a while i get my kicks having an argument with a troll. Not something i go out of my way for mind you, but i admit it does happen from time to time.

Weird Harold wrote:That sdvice hasn't changed since "Trolls" were called "Twits" and Ignore lists were called "Twit Filters."

Victory!

Weird Harold wrote:

Relax wrote:Assumes: GA can't build streak hyperdrive in Haven yards and MUST be done at Manticore. Talk about Manticore myopic glasses. R&D? Theory; sure, but prototyping? Nope.

I suspect that much like the Apollo capable Bolthole Special SDs, the basic systems will be built/installed in Haven yards but the production Streak Drives will be built initially in Beowulf.

Except text states brute force approach and nothing all that technical about it other than massive and power hungry. So it is not a technology, rather a different implementation of existing tech many centuries old.

Relax wrote:Except text states brute force approach and nothing all that technical about it other than massive and power hungry. So it is not a technology, rather a different implementation of existing tech many centuries old.

On the contrary, the text (as quoted further up the thread) states that the streak drive requires both a lot more power and technology that took a century of research to make operational.

Relax wrote:Assumes: SL worlds have MDM.
-- Cataphract pods are useless for defensive purposes against any GA force. Anyone thinks otherwise, I have some swamp land in Florida to sell you and I have heard the London Bridge is for sale. I have the deed, right here(searches under my...)

If you don't scout properly and don't know the Cataphracts are there, they can be extremely dangerous. Which was the point of mentioning Technodyne's System Defense monsters and Cataphract pods -- no matter how much pre-war intel the GA might have, current intel still matters.[/quote]

Say what? Only DD's have RD's? BC's SD's have far more RD's than DD's do. RD's have several hours to collect data. No reason to race for a 0-0 planetary Halleluiah chorus, even then who cares if they do? Still leaves hours to scout pods and destroy them. Currently RMN RD's can trundle along within 10,000km from any SL sensor, so its not as if one has to worry about being seen. Nothing remains in stealth at anywhere close to that range. Even if the RD is observed, so what? The giant hyper footprint already told any defense what is about to happen.

Pods are rather obvious in orbit from all posts in the books. Technodyne pods are easily swatted just like RMN pods. Only reason the Pods at Monica had a chance is because Terekov necromanced a dodo bird out of extinction and got within their range. He knew they were there long before he made his 0-0. Cataphract pods range is known. Can a Cataphract have a ballistic phase? Lets be nice and say, yes. So what? 1.5SDM(DDM) verses MDM...

You need no previous intel regarding pods in orbit.

Intel is good for mobile forces. Not stationary. No commander, admiral is worried about stationary forces.

Dafmeister wrote:

Relax wrote:Except text states brute force approach and nothing all that technical about it other than massive and power hungry. So it is not a technology, rather a different implementation of existing tech many centuries old.

On the contrary, the text (as quoted further up the thread) states that the streak drive requires both a lot more power and technology that took a century of research to make operational.

On the contrary. It was a brute force approach from the applied math. Just because the math and initial implementation required 100s of years of trial and error does not make something difficult to produce, create, implement. What it does mean is the initial AH-HA moment required a lot of time. Most engineering is this way. Very little is actual technology. Rather observing how to implement the mathematics into reality. Once this AH-HA moment hurdle is jumped, the actually building testing, is straight forward. Or waiting for a tangential technology $$$/refinement to decrease to the point making the implementation practical. Hmm, exactly as how it is described in the text. How about dem apples...

For instance UAV's have been around for a VERY long time. It has only been recently that they have become ubiquitous as the cost/weight for INS combined with processing video feeds has decreased drastically.

Relax wrote:Say what? Only DD's have RD's? BC's SD's have far more RD's than DD's do. RD's have several hours to collect data.

Where did you get such a stupid idea? Of course bigger ships have more RDs. I never even hinted otherwise.

RDs from an attacking SD task force may have hours to collect data, but a scout ahead of the attack can take days or weeks to really collect data and spot ships lying doggo under stealth and em-con. Every Navy except yours uses small ships as as scouts and collects as much data as possible before attacking.

Even the SLN uses smaller ships for scouting when they bother to scout. Their record when attacking without good scouting info isn't the kind of thing I'd base my strategy on.

Small scouts not used? Say what?

No.

I pointed out that scouting for the next few years is essentially useless as the tech imbalance is absurd. Just send the attack force. The targets are not ships/pods as they pose no credible threat, unless your attack force CO is so stupid as to no bother deploying RD’s at all.

You extrapolated this to mean that SD's will be used as scouts.

Reading comprehension. Sheesh.

Or, purposefully being diabolical.

Weird Harold wrote:

Relax wrote:Say what? Only DD's have RD's? BC's SD's have far more RD's than DD's do. RD's have several hours to collect data.

Where did you get such a stupid idea? Of course bigger ships have more RDs. I never even hinted otherwise.

RDs from an attacking SD task force may have hours to collect data, but a scout ahead of the attack can take days or weeks to really collect data and spot ships lying doggo under stealth and em-con. Every Navy except yours uses small ships as as scouts and collects as much data as possible before attacking.

Even the SLN uses smaller ships for scouting when they bother to scout. Their record when attacking without good scouting info isn't the kind of thing I'd base my strategy on.