kzt wrote:munroburton wrote:No way around it, it does need hyper-capable warships to go up there and chase the buggers away. But outbound vessels could choose a random course away from the star and cruise through n-space for a while to get outside of alpha-wall detection range or sufficiently close to it that a running start lets them evade the sitting raiders.
Remember that 60/1 ratio. So you need to go a light hour outside the hyper limit to produce a distance of a light minute on Alpha. You can safely assume that a raider has better sensors than a merchant and it has been stated that the hyper transition across the Alpha wall is highly visible on Alpha. So a raider stealthfully waiting on Alpha (unless they need to use sails) is going to be pretty hard to spot unless you are already in knifefighting range, and the merchant is going to be very easy to spot.
I don't think anyone in the Honorverse has discussed stealth in a grav wave, I have no idea if it is possible. But most systems are not in a grav wave.
Edit: The other issue with flying way out is that it allows plan B: I sneak a ship into real space and when I see a merchant heading way out I go into hyper and either vector a buddy to drop on it from Hyper or do it myself.
It isn't quite that much distance:
More Than Honor, The Universe of Honor Harrington, (1) Background (General) wrote:Navigation, communication, and observation all are rendered difficult by the nature of hyper-space. Formed by gravitational distortion, hyper-space itself acts as a focusing glass, producing a cascade effect of ever more tightly warped space. The laws of relativistic physics apply at any given point in that space, but as a hypothetical observer looks "outward" in hyper-space, his instruments show a rapidly increasing distortion. At ranges above about 20 LM (359,751,000 km.) that distortion becomes so pronounced that accurate observations are impossible. One says "about 20 LM" because, depending on local conditions, that range may vary up or down by as much as 12%—that is, from 17.6 LM (316,580,880 km.) to 22.4 LM (or 402,921,120 km.). A hypership thus travels at the center of a bubble of observation from 633,161,760 to 805,842,240 km. in diameter. Even within that sphere, observations and measurements can be highly suspect; in effect, the "bubble" may be thought of as the region in which an observer can tell something is out there and very roughly where. Exact, precise observations and measurements are all but impossible above ranges of 5,000,000 to 6,000,000 km., which would make navigational fixes impossible even if there were anything to take fixes on.
Boldface is my emphasis.
One possible way to stretch out the detection distance in hyperspace would be to enter hyper somewhere on the hyper limit opposite from a departure point's least time course. From
Hyper Limits by stellar spectral class an F0 has a hyper limit of 26.42 LM and a K9 has a hyper limit of 13.64 LM, with stars of F1 through K8 having hyper limits between F0 and K9 stars. Since you would be on the opposite side from a least time course when you hit the hyper limit you could be up to twice the hyper limit distance in normal space from where the raider would lie doggo in the alpha hyper band.
Presumably the flash of energy from an upwards alpha translation would be visible at about 20 LM in hyper. But that only lasts very briefly and the merchant ship will not be staying in the alpha band any longer than necessary to recharge the hyper generator for the next translation to the beta hyper band (to be repeated until the ship has climbed as high as its hyper generator will allow).
I suspect for a raider lying doggo in the alpha band to successfully intercept and engage a ship translating into hyper from normal space, the raider would have to be in the "ranges of 5,000,000 to 6,000,000 km" from the target where the "Exact, precise observations and measurements" necessary to engage a target are possible. Which is just over 20 light seconds in hyper, or 20 & 1/3 light minutes in normal space. If the target is much further away from the raider, the target will probably succeed in getting away by opening the range enough to where it can't be accurately tracked and eventually translate into the beta band, completing a successful evasion.
Note that an SDM has a "maximum powered engagement range of 6,755,000 kilometers" when "setting the drive down to 42,500 gravities, time to burnout can be extended to 180 seconds".
Quotes in the last 2 paragraphs are from The Short Victorious War, Honor Harrington's Navy, Naval Weaponry.
