Ghost Rider Compesators

Somtaaw wrote:I'm not sure if this is a bad thing, or a good thing I might actually be learning to "speak" Skimper level of stupid...


but I think his twisted mind has fixated on how fast Ghost Rider drones can accelerate and wants to know why ships don't go that fast. Ignoring the minor fact that Ghost Rider drones either aren't compensated at all, or compensated very very little to allow them acceleration in the thousands rather than the hundreds ships can handle.

Weird Harold wrote:Not to mention the smaller the volume compensated for inertia, the higher the acceleration. Also, the greater the ratio of compensated volume to available "gravity sink" (i.e. the wedge) the higher the permissible acceleration.

If a ship and a drone have the same compensator technology, the drone is going to be faster by at least an order of magnitude -- or two.

“CIC makes it thirteen sources, Sir,” the lieutenant reported after a moment, and Hammond felt his muscles tighten. “They’re half a light-minute outside the hyper limit,” Garrett continued. “That puts them at a range of two-one-five-point-nine million klicks. Current closing velocity niner-one-three KPS. Acceleration five-point-seven KPS squared.”
-snip-
“Yes, Sir.” Hammond wasn’t looking—or feeling—any happier. “They’re up to a closing velocity of just under four thousand KPS. GG”—he nodded at Garrett—“makes it three hours and fourteen minutes to a zero/zero intercept with the planet…and us, of course. Turnover in about an hour and a half. Velocity at turnover will be right on thirty-five thousand KPS.”
-snip-
“How much longer for the platforms to give us a good look at the planetary orbitals, Stilt?” he asked.
“Not long, Sir,” his operations officer replied. “They’re only about ninety-six light-seconds from Mobius Beta, now. In fact, if there’s anything in orbit with active impellers, it’s got to be on the far side of the planet from us at the moment, or we’d already have picked it up.”
“Good.”
Terekhov tipped back in his command chair, gazing at the master plot. Quentin Saint-James had reentered normal-space twenty-six minutes earlier. During that time, she’d increased her n-space velocity to just over ninety-four hundred kilometers per second and traveled just under 7.8 million kilometers towards the planet officially designated Mobius Beta. During that same interval, the Ghost Rider recon platforms they’d deployed as soon as they’d made their alpha translation had traveled ten and a half light-minutes—almost 200 million kilometers—at their vastly higher acceleration. In fact, they were already decelerating towards a zero/zero rendezvous with the planet.

kzt wrote:IIRC, they can do about 10,000g. They might be running without a compensator, just directly handing the acceleration. Don't know.

Weird Harold wrote:

kzt wrote:IIRC, they can do about 10,000g. They might be running without a compensator, just directly handing the acceleration. Don't know.

I've forgotten.

What happens if you exceed a compensator's top acceleration? Other than compensator failure, that is. Is failure the only option if you accelerate at 101% of your compensator's capacity?

Somtaaw wrote:Ok, so unless anyone has a better (or more specific datum anyways), I've found a few passages in Shadow of Freedom regarding Ghost Rider drones.

Quentin Saint-James had reentered normal-space twenty-six minutes earlier.
[snip]
the Ghost Rider recon platforms they’d deployed as soon as they’d made their alpha translation had traveled ten and a half light-minutes—almost 200 million kilometers—at their vastly higher acceleration. In fact, they were already decelerating towards a zero/zero rendezvous with the planet.

So the, more or less latest, Ghost Rider drones travelled almost 200 million kilometers in just under 24 minutes, and were down to under 96 light-seconds from Mobius. I'm sure exactly how fast that makes a Ghost Rider drone, but Sag-C's had a speed of 730 grav's, and the drones did the trip something like 10 times faster than the ships could have, and did it without detection. Rough mass on Ghost Rider drones has to be around the same for capital MDM's at the top end, so a max of 1000 tons or so, compared to the Saganami's 483 ktons.


[snip]
But out of curiosity, what is the acceleration those Ghost Rider drones pulled at Mobius?

A Rising Thunder wrote:Without Ghost Rider’s onboard fusion plants, Solarian reconnaissance platforms had both lower acceleration rates and—compared to their Manticoran counterparts—pitiful endurance. Five thousand gravities was about the best they could turn out, and they couldn’t maintain even that power level for very long.

At All Costs wrote:The first Ghost Rider platforms were already twenty-five thousand kilometers out, accelerating at just over five thousand gravities.

Storm from the Shadows wrote:In that same interval, the Ghost Rider platforms, loping along at the low (for them) acceleration of only five thousand gravities in order to stay stealthy, had already moved three minutes past their turnover time.