Attacking Darius:

tlb wrote:

ThinksMarkedly wrote:It might not be. My theory is that two sides would have been enough to get movement, but three is better and four is overkill. Your own explanation would allow for moving with just two, because they are parallel to each other. But it might be unstable, because no system is perfect, so it requires more work / energy to keep it going.

If we assume that the tractors on the spider stick straight away from the ship with an angle toward the front, then you would need three sets in order to maneuver in three dimensions. Two sets on opposite sides of the ship would only allow you to maneuver in a plane.

Well unless you also had some way to roll the ship; as rolling would change the alignment of the plane your two sides of tractors were pulling moving on and thus enable maneuvering in all 3 dimensions. (And you wouldn't necessarily need to use thrusters for that rolling. While anchored by the tractors you could spin up an internal gyrostabilizer, and then after releasing the tractors push against it to rotate the ship before reengaging the tractors; alternatively if you could give the tractor mounts some degree of lateral freedom then the side angle of the tractors could be enough to induce a rotation)

But the 2 side spider is more of a hypothetical engineering solution; rather than a good way to design a warship. Going with 3 sides gives you better ability to stabilize against unwanted lateral motion and provides full pitch and yaw control without having to first roll the ship.

tlb wrote:

ThinksMarkedly wrote:It might not be. My theory is that two sides would have been enough to get movement, but three is better and four is overkill. Your own explanation would allow for moving with just two, because they are parallel to each other. But it might be unstable, because no system is perfect, so it requires more work / energy to keep it going.

If we assume that the tractors on the spider stick straight away from the ship with an angle toward the front, then you would need three sets in order to maneuver in three dimensions. Two sets on opposite sides of the ship would only allow you to maneuver in a plane.

Jonathan_S wrote:Well unless you also had some way to roll the ship; as rolling would change the alignment of the plane your two sides of tractors were pulling moving on and thus enable maneuvering in all 3 dimensions. (And you wouldn't necessarily need to use thrusters for that rolling. While anchored by the tractors you could spin up an internal gyrostabilizer, and then after releasing the tractors push against it to rotate the ship before reengaging the tractors; alternatively if you could give the tractor mounts some degree of lateral freedom then the side angle of the tractors could be enough to induce a rotation)

But the 2 side spider is more of a hypothetical engineering solution; rather than a good way to design a warship. Going with 3 sides gives you better ability to stabilize against unwanted lateral motion and provides full pitch and yaw control without having to first roll the ship.

The tractors may be configurable. If they roll in place that should solve the problem

ThinksMarkedly wrote:

kzt wrote:It sends the waste heat out the tractors to hyperspace.

Well, sure, that's the "gravity sump" trick for the compensators. But it doesn't seem like this is possible because we know the ships do have waste heat in n-space.

It might become possible in the future.

But we don't know if that waste heat is expelled in n-space while the drive is both idling or engaged. The sump might possibly be available only when the Spider is moving.

cthia wrote:Can't use thrusters. Thrusters will be visible.

Like Honor's forces' were in Hades?

cthia wrote:But we don't know if that waste heat is expelled in n-space while the drive is both idling or engaged. The sump might possibly be available only when the Spider is moving.

We don't know for certain, I agree, but the ship appeared to need to exhaust while moving, so the drive was engaged.

While idling, it would have a much lower power production output and thus a lower need to exhaust. It can't go down to zero, but it would be proportionately smaller.

It can go down to zero if you direct your waste heat to a heat sink, but a heat sink has only so much capacity to absorb heat before it comes into equilibrium with its surroundings... which are the inside of the ship. You have to "charge" your heat sink by cooling it down while you can expel some heat, then you can direct the heat into it when you can't afford to expel heat. This would give the stealth ship a period of time when it isn't emitting anything at all.

cthia wrote:Can't use thrusters. Thrusters will be visible.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:Like Honor's forces' were in Hades?

I hope that you know that her thrusters were very visible at Hades; the Peep force was just not looking for them. Not a mistake that a recon drone would make.

tlb wrote:

cthia wrote:Can't use thrusters. Thrusters will be visible.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:Like Honor's forces' were in Hades?

I hope that you know that her thrusters were very visible at Hades; the Peep force was just not looking for them. Not a mistake that a recon drone would make.

That scene is exactly what I was referring to. However, Honor attacked with the sun at her back so she would have a bit of an advantage. I suppose that would be called "The shoot out at the OK Coral" maneuver. 'Ouch!'

tlb wrote:

ThinksMarkedly wrote:It might not be. My theory is that two sides would have been enough to get movement, but three is better and four is overkill. Your own explanation would allow for moving with just two, because they are parallel to each other. But it might be unstable, because no system is perfect, so it requires more work / energy to keep it going.

If we assume that the tractors on the spider stick straight away from the ship with an angle toward the front, then you would need three sets in order to maneuver in three dimensions. Two sets on opposite sides of the ship would only allow you to maneuver in a plane.

Jonathan_S wrote:Well unless you also had some way to roll the ship; as rolling would change the alignment of the plane your two sides of tractors were pulling moving on and thus enable maneuvering in all 3 dimensions. (And you wouldn't necessarily need to use thrusters for that rolling. While anchored by the tractors you could spin up an internal gyrostabilizer, and then after releasing the tractors push against it to rotate the ship before reengaging the tractors; alternatively if you could give the tractor mounts some degree of lateral freedom then the side angle of the tractors could be enough to induce a rotation)

But the 2 side spider is more of a hypothetical engineering solution; rather than a good way to design a warship. Going with 3 sides gives you better ability to stabilize against unwanted lateral motion and provides full pitch and yaw control without having to first roll the ship.

cthia wrote:The tractors may be configurable. If they roll in place that should solve the problem

This gives me an opportunity to enquire about the method conventional ships use to maneuver. How exactly does a wedge and impeller ship maneuver? Forward and backward is obvious, but how does a ship accomplish the "slowly crabbing off base course" that storyline loves to tell? What exactly moves that alters the vector?

cthia wrote:This gives me an opportunity to enquire about the method conventional ships use to maneuver. How exactly does a wedge and impeller ship maneuver? Forward and backward is obvious, but how does a ship accomplish the "slowly crabbing off base course" that storyline loves to tell? What exactly moves that alters the vector?

Personally, I have never understood why you cannot go backwards with a wedge, just by tilting it in the other direction. After all, a square rigged ship can go backwards by backing its sails. In the Honorverse, the ships always flip front to back in order to decelerate.

I assume it turns by tilting the wedge from side to side.

cthia wrote:This gives me an opportunity to enquire about the method conventional ships use to maneuver. How exactly does a wedge and impeller ship maneuver? Forward and backward is obvious, but how does a ship accomplish the "slowly crabbing off base course" that storyline loves to tell? What exactly moves that alters the vector?

I don't think we know. The books are pretty clear that the wedge can be used to, somehow produce asymmetric forces that allow ships to turn, pitch, and roll -- but to the best of my recollection they're totally silent on exactly how that is done.


Though we do know, at least for Shrikes, that the wedge allows them to maneuver more quickly than their reaction thrusters "Reaction thrusters flared, pushing LAC Wing One's bows sideways with old-fashioned brute power. It was slow and ponderous compared to maneuvering on impellers" [EoH]