Insanity: Screening elements in the HV

Theemile wrote:It also brings back the discussion about spider drive ships using a wormhole - the spider would need to be shut down to bring up Alpha nodes - 40 minutes later. Approaching a wormhole would need to be done on fusion thrusters alone, since i doubt someone would allow you to coast on an approach vector at a wormhole for 40+ minutes.

Jonathan_S wrote:Assuming that that's how spider ships access wormholes.

All we really have is RFC's tum-te-tum and this snippet from a 2012 post in the thread "Obstacles".

runsforcelery wrote:(1) Spider drive ships can make transit into and out of hyper --- or through a wormhole --- just fine, thank you

(The bulk of the post was detailing why the Sharks linked themselves together before hypering in for Oyster Bay)

Sure, maybe the use Alpha nodes and a sail. Maybe the spider drive itself can be used within a grav wave or wormhole entry/exit lane, and that provides the necessarily stabilization against turbulence. Either (or something else entirely) could fit under "just fine, thank you" -- so we just don't know.

Theemile wrote:Good catch on that. I missed that confirmation.

That just leaves us with the murky question of How it's done... great...

Speaking of the spider drive, this might be a good time to remind ourselves of these remarks by the author, which could mean the secret of the drive and its detection might soon be discovered:
From Spoiler!!... Mycroft and UH

runsforcelery wrote:On the other side, Shannon and Sonja and their people have pretty much worked out what the spider drive does; they just don't have a clue yet how to do it themselves. Of course, with the Demonic Duo involved, the "how" will probably follow fairly closely on the heels of "what."

Next page:

Weird Harold wrote:It isn't the FTL comm's grav pulses that intersect with the Spider Drive, it is the faint ripples along the Alpha (or next higher hyper-band) where they intersect. FTL comm receivers are sensitive enough to detect and decode those ripples, and IMHO, Spider Drive should manifest as "static" on FTL comms.

JohnRoth wrote:Actually, I expect that they should be filtered out in the process of cleaning up the signal.

runsforcelery wrote:Eyup.

tlb wrote:

penny wrote:Maybe stealth is the distinguishing feature. Torpedoes -- for the most part like their sub analogues -- are stealthy. Missiles are not stealthy. If true, it would be an error to refer to a missile as a torpedo. Their tactical differences are significant.

It depends on the type of WWII torpedo as to whether it is stealthy or not. If driven by batteries and an electric motor, then yes they are stealthy (the first US use of the electric torpedo was not until September 1943 and there were development problems). However the alternative is fuel and compressed air (or oxygen in the Japanese Long Lance) and that can be noisy and leave a trail of bubbles to mark its path. The fuel driven torpedoes had a speed advantage during the war and the Long Lance torpedoes (ship fired, not sub fired) also had a tremendous distance advantage - to the extent that people believed that they must have come from a nearby sub.

For me the distinguishing feature is the long duration, single use graser in the warhead. Just as the WWII torpedoes had propulsion systems with varying levels of stealth, so does the graser torpedo.

The Japanese compressed oxygen torpedoes actually left very little bubble trail -- the bulk of the bubbles from other torpedoes came from all the nitrogen in the compressed air that simply passed through the combustion chamber and then bubbled to the surface.

The Japanese torpedoes weren't bubble free, but they were significantly reduced bubble.

And compared to firing a broadside of your guns any WWII torpedo was fairly stealthy. But yes, the electric ones were stealthier that the combustion ones.

Jobathan_S wrote:Maybe the spider drive itself can be used within a grav wave or wormhole entry/exit lane, and that provides the necessarily stabilization against turbulence.

I'd be willing to invest in that notion. It's that symbiotic relationship again. A gravity based tractor system riding along a gravity wave. I can see that.

penny wrote:Maybe stealth is the distinguishing feature. Torpedoes -- for the most part like their sub analogues -- are stealthy. Missiles are not stealthy. If true, it would be an error to refer to a missile as a torpedo. Their tactical differences are significant.

tlb wrote:It depends on the type of WWII torpedo as to whether it is stealthy or not. If driven by batteries and an electric motor, then yes they are stealthy (the first US use of the electric torpedo was not until September 1943 and there were development problems). However the alternative is fuel and compressed air (or oxygen in the Japanese Long Lance) and that can be noisy and leave a trail of bubbles to mark its path. The fuel driven torpedoes had a speed advantage during the war and the Long Lance torpedoes (ship fired, not sub fired) also had a tremendous distance advantage - to the extent that people believed that they must have come from a nearby sub.

For me the distinguishing feature is the long duration, single use graser in the warhead. Just as the WWII torpedoes had propulsion systems with varying levels of stealth, so does the graser torpedo.

Jonathan_S wrote:The Japanese compressed oxygen torpedoes actually left very little bubble trail -- the bulk of the bubbles from other torpedoes came from all the nitrogen in the compressed air that simply passed through the combustion chamber and then bubbled to the surface.

The Japanese torpedoes weren't bubble free, but they were significantly reduced bubble.

And compared to firing a broadside of your guns any WWII torpedo was fairly stealthy. But yes, the electric ones were stealthier that the combustion ones.

I left some wiggle room, by saying "can leave" instead of "did leave". So the trail would just be the carbon dioxide and a bit of steam (?). I did not realize until today that the fueled engines were basically steam driven motors, as the combustion was prior to the action with any piston.

There was a disadvantage to the Long Lance in that stored oxygen meant any fire due to enemy action could turn into a conflagration.

Yes, a torpedo is quieter than gunfire, but can make noise that is picked up by hydophones (such as used in sonar). As we both said, the electric torpedo makes much less noise.

Jobathan_S wrote:Maybe the spider drive itself can be used within a grav wave or wormhole entry/exit lane, and that provides the necessarily stabilization against turbulence.

penny wrote:I'd be willing to invest in that notion. It's that symbiotic relationship again. A gravity based tractor system riding along a gravity wave. I can see that.

It is difficult to see how that can have a "tuning" effect as described with the sails, but that is up to the author. Let's hope the next follow-up book has more information (and that it comes soon).

tlb wrote:

penny wrote:I don't think that would give the LD too much of an advantage, rather than making the MAN more than a mere paper tiger or obese gorilla. At least until a spider drive detector is devised. I'm all for letting the MAN run amuck for a few chapters / books just to keep the finale interesting. Go out with a bang.

The things that you want, such a a three second graser that does not explode or waste heat dumped into hyper-space, are not things that exist now. So it all depends on how many more books the author expects are needed to wrap up his story.

Both the X-ray and graser beams will cause matter in the path to fluoresce and result in some beam scatter. That depends on how clean or dirty the space is when action takes place. So there is a potential for a line pointing back to the source.

However the destruction of an RD from "slamming into a wall" is going to produce a major light display, right at the site of the spider drive ship. There is every expectation that the damage will extend to spider drive ship itself.

If an RD hits a brick wall, the analysis of that will yield a lot less information. There will certainly be no vector associated with the “mishap.” And mishap will be what the GA will be wondering at first. They might eventually figure out that something is eating the drones. And they might even figure that out upon the first drone disappearing. But there will be no vector associated with the disappearance. No footprints leading back to the culprit. There will simply be coordinates of a general vicinity. And if the tractor's range is kms, then there is too much of an area involved to blindly launch. Launching a lot more probes in that vicinity will only result in more probes being eaten. But there will be no illuminated yellow brick road leading directly back to the point source. It will mirror what happened to the space station Giselle which caused Byng to be binged. IOW, analysis, reflection and bewilderment are time consuming notions that allow the LD to perform evasive maneuvers.

Late edit: There is certainly a possibility of an LD suffering damage, unless the fuse box reacts quickly enough to kill the beam and the power surge.

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tlb wrote:Yes, a torpedo is quieter than gunfire, but can make noise that is picked up by hydophones (such as used in sonar). As we both said, the electric torpedo makes much less noise.

For a lot of the battles it was more important that the torpedo didn't have the flash (or smoke) of gunfire. Visual detection was more of a concern because many ships didn't carry hyrophones and even the ones that did might not always have a listening watch on them -- ships relied more on active sonar (or ASDIC as the British called it) than on passive listening -- though the Germans got good use out of their ship mounted hycrophones.

And visual detection was even more likely in the early years of the war before low-flash propellant became a bit more common.

So it was generally good tactics (though often someone jumped the gun) in a night ambush to fire your topedoes first and not fire your guns until the enemy reacted or the torpedoes would have/did hit. Not only did they take longer to travel the distance to the enemy but but there was a good chance the enemy wouldn't detect them in time evade (or possibly at all). But they almost certainly wouldn't miss gunfire and, alerted to enemy presence, would almost certainly maneuver and spoil the torpedo attack.

penny wrote:If an RD hits a brick wall, the analysis of that will yield a lot less information. There will certainly be no vector associated with the “mishap.” And mishap will be what the GA will be wondering at first. They might eventually figure out that something is eating the drones. And they might even figure that out upon the first drone disappearing. But there will be no vector associated with the disappearance. No footprints leading back to the culprit. There will simply be coordinates of a general vicinity. And if the tractor's range is kms, then there is too much of an area involved to blindly launch.

Really? Apparition was worried about detection at 2 light-minutes nearly 36 million km -- especially if the cruiser launched a pattern of RDs so the spider had to hide sensors looking in multiple directions.

If an RD "runs into a brick wall" even a few hundred km from a Spider ship that's more that close enough for other RDs to saturate the area and be very likely to find it. At least if there are any close enough to be diverted within, say, 10 minutes. Mere km of separation is basically nothing in space.

And a weapon that reached out km isn't much use killing RDs that, at least from the right angle, can seemingly detect a spider ships at at least light-seconds.

tlb wrote:However the destruction of an RD from "slamming into a wall" is going to produce a major light display, right at the site of the spider drive ship. There is every expectation that the damage will extend to spider drive ship itself.

penny wrote:If an RD hits a brick wall, the analysis of that will yield a lot less information. There will certainly be no vector associated with the “mishap.” And mishap will be what the GA will be wondering at first. They might eventually figure out that something is eating the drones. And they might even figure that out upon the first drone disappearing. But there will be no vector associated with the disappearance. No footprints leading back to the culprit. There will simply be coordinates of a general vicinity. And if the tractor's range is kms, then there is too much of an area involved to blindly launch. Launching a lot more probes in that vicinity will only result in more probes being eaten. But there will be no illuminated yellow brick road leading directly back to the point source. It will mirror what happened to the space station Giselle which caused Byng to be binged. IOW, analysis, reflection and bewilderment are time consuming notions that allow the LD to perform evasive maneuvers.

Late edit: There is certainly a possibility of an LD suffering damage, unless the fuse box reacts quickly enough to kill the beam and the power surge.

What is there about being turned into a cloud of plasma that you imagine will not be noticeable? Localizing the ship to within a few kilometers is a tremendous advance to finding it, unless you think there is no heat signature to the ship (something the author has not yet agreed to).

Byng was not dinged (nor binged) by the space station Giselle; he was still sitting fat and happy long after it and the destroyers, commanded by Commodore Ray Chatterjee, that his fleet shot up were gone. If was not until Vice Admiral Gold Peak and Tenth Fleet showed up three weeks later that Byng got his comeuppance.

tlb wrote:

tlb wrote:However the destruction of an RD from "slamming into a wall" is going to produce a major light display, right at the site of the spider drive ship. There is every expectation that the damage will extend to spider drive ship itself.

penny wrote:If an RD hits a brick wall, the analysis of that will yield a lot less information. There will certainly be no vector associated with the “mishap.” And mishap will be what the GA will be wondering at first. They might eventually figure out that something is eating the drones. And they might even figure that out upon the first drone disappearing. But there will be no vector associated with the disappearance. No footprints leading back to the culprit. There will simply be coordinates of a general vicinity. And if the tractor's range is kms, then there is too much of an area involved to blindly launch. Launching a lot more probes in that vicinity will only result in more probes being eaten. But there will be no illuminated yellow brick road leading directly back to the point source. It will mirror what happened to the space station Giselle which caused Byng to be binged. IOW, analysis, reflection and bewilderment are time consuming notions that allow the LD to perform evasive maneuvers.

Late edit: There is certainly a possibility of an LD suffering damage, unless the fuse box reacts quickly enough to kill the beam and the power surge.

What is there about being turned into a cloud of plasma that you imagine will not be noticeable? Localizing the ship to within a few kilometers is a tremendous advance to finding it, unless you think there is no heat signature to the ship (something the author has not yet agreed to).

Byng was not dinged (nor binged) by the space station Giselle; he was still sitting fat and happy long after it and the destroyers, commanded by Commodore Ray Chatterjee, that his fleet shot up were gone. If was not until Vice Admiral Gold Peak and Tenth Fleet showed up three weeks later that Byng got his comeuppance.

OOPS -- from the responses my LD friends -- methinks we better scoot! LoL

I didn't say it wouldn't be noticeable. A ball of plasma would be very noticeable.*

But the coordinates of the collision -- certainly if at the edge of a kms long spider drive's tractor beam -- isn't enough to target the LD with an alpha launch. It's enough to waste lots of missiles. But I do agree that it does yield pertinent information about where to flood the area with more RDs. But I shall stick to my comment about yielding a lot less information (like a line back to the source indicating the exact location of the LD, and that an energy weapon was involved) because I'm very sure the LD would much rather have an alpha launch of probes headed its way than an alpha launch of missiles! The LD can just keep eating the probes because a launch of missiles cannot be sent until the LD is... I'm betting, locked up! Especially if the GA will be shooting from the hyper limit!

*I just had a thought. Whether the author adopts the idea about transferring waste heat into hyper along the tractor beam utililizing the symbiotic relationship between gravity and heat won't be answered until the book. But the notion is certainly one that holds water and the physics cannot be denied. If so, then the plasma from a probe crashing into the beam might also be transferred into hyper!

P S. 'Bing' used to be slang for the sound made when you wanted to indicate something that has been shot. As a kid you pointed your finger and went 'bing bing bing bing bing.' The sound of a golden BB.