JohnRoth wrote:ChronicRder wrote:Back to Bolthole, I see one of the next developments being a reverse engineering of the Spider drive and putting them on either long range drones (like a Argus net that actually worked as intended) or refitting their LACs with them. Yes, yes, I know. Only an insane amount of luck let the Manties discover it, but the Peeps didn't know that. Throw a Ghost Rider FTL transmitter on it and with the Spider drive and may've worked better. Putting Spiders on LACs would give the "hyperless" vessels a way out if their carriers are destroyed in battle or all those assigned as system patrol craft the ability to become short-medium range fighters.
It's an intriguing idea, but LACs are currently very space limited. Replacing the wedge with a spider drive would reduce their acceleration from 800 or go Gs to 150 Gs and eliminate their ability to do FTL communication (no nodes,) while adding an additional drive would take up space they need for missiles and so on and so forth. It also might make them too big to fit on the current generation of CLACs. Also, RFC said that spider drive ships were built to a completely different design geometry from impeller drive ships - they have three keels, for example. I suspect a retrofit would be more expensive than simply designing a new class of craft.
I also don't see them building any spider drive ships at this time, other than as an experimental ship to work on spider drive detectors, which are a really high priority. The GA doesn't really want to engage in "invisible starship" hit and run raids, or at least they don't need to.
That may very well be true. I hadn't quite considered all that. I was going off the other theme RFC has been very keen on in regards to the MAlignment and the GA. Mesans, and their affiliates, genetically engineer everyone in their society. Meaning the theorists, physicists, and other developers of the Spider affiliated systems were designed to do that kind of thing...and Detweiller has said in the texts that they can't match the ingenuity and sheer audacity of the Manties (and later Foraker can be implied in that group too). Furthermore, that the only way they could match that would be to allow for the free exchange of ideas between what passes for their caste system and allow everyone the opportunity to pass or fail on their own.
That ideal and theme, so central to the Manties ability to seize the initiative and innovate politically, economically, industrially, socially, and militarily is the antithesis of Mesa's society which is literally designed. Everyone is a cog in some astronomically huge machine that requires every single part to function as intended and only as intended. There's no room for true innovation there like there is in the Empire or even the reborn Republic of Haven.
That is where my idea concerning the revamping of the LACs came from. I have no science behind it other than shark equipped warships are at a distinct disadvantage except for ideal, one-time only situations like the Yawata Strike/Oyster Bay. LACs, not being true warships, could have a new class designed to incorporate the Spider tech best, in my opinion. The could survive longer, even after their motherships are destroyed, by simply not being bound to a single star system anymore, at least theoretically. Now, the question of supplies might be an issue, but the capability would be there. It's enough to war-game at least, no?
