(SPOILERS) Expected defeat at Beowulf.

C. O. Thompson wrote:
The junction is in a binary star system this would have an amplification effect on the RZ. Didn't one half of the Havanite Navy jump in close to the wormhole at Baslisk? I don't recall why they did not jump right out when the saw they were trapped but they did jump in with the objective to knock out the fort and hold the terminus.

If you're talking about the planned attack on the Basilisk terminus during Icarus, then the Havenite force was never 'trapped', at least not to their knowledge. They overshot their intended arrival point and had to turn around, giving time for White Haven to mount a double-transit from Trevor's Star with 8th Fleet and roll enough pods that you could walk from his flagship to Astro Control. The Peep admiral had no idea what he was up against until the first wave of missiles launched, by which time it was far too late to evade.

C. O. Thompson wrote:["Jonathan_S"]["Tail Twitcher"]["kzt"]
It is explained somewhere. Essentially jumping into the vicinity of the junction is not safe.

Does that mean impossible, or merely not advisable?

[/quote]IIRC the resonance zone RZ forms a triangle from the junction to the edges of Manticore A's hyper limit. You can jump out from the RZ at the risk of reduced accuracy and some increased component wear. But attempting to enter N-space within the volume of the RZ is universally fatal.

So jumping in near the Junction is a mostly a question of how certain you are that you're going to miss the RZ. More standoff distance leaves more room for error.


Lesser wormholes have weaker RZ's. Not sure how weak they need to be before attempting to enter N-space within one ceases to be suicidal...

The junction is in a binary star system this would have an amplification effect on the RZ. Didn't one half of the Havanite Navy jump in close to the wormhole at Baslisk? I don't recall why they did not jump right out when the saw they were trapped but they did jump in with the objective to knock out the fort and hold the terminus.[/quote]

They overshot the target and were going away from the junction instead of towards it when they translated, and because of the EW from the forts they couldn't see what was waiting for them at the junction until they were too close to bail out once they were on an inbound vector and managed to get some fuzzy resolution on the targets, IIRC they never did get full resolution before they were fired on by Hamish et. al.

Brigade XO wrote:Exactly how does an EE strike, even "accidental" help the SL's nominal position? I can't imagine even the Mandarins being able to get away with saying "we had to bomb Beowulf to save it".
Setting up the GA to look like it was responsible for a missile strike on the planet would be difficult.

I could see it as a mixed outcome. On the one hand it shows the iron fist quite clearly. Planets that don't have SDFs capable of standing off the remnants of the SLN might be more reluctant to take open measures against the League government. (Especially true out in the verge)

On the other hand the open use of deadly force, including collateral damage against civilians, against a system exercising its written constitutional right to secede is going to strip away of a lot of the moral high ground the League government had (or appeared to have). So the most powerful systems might be more likely to split off and enforce their neutrality against the rouge League government.

There are limits to how well you can rule by fear, and a successful strike against Beowulf is definitely going down the rule by fear path.

Dafmeister wrote:

C. O. Thompson wrote:
The junction is in a binary star system this would have an amplification effect on the RZ. Didn't one half of the Havanite Navy jump in close to the wormhole at Baslisk? I don't recall why they did not jump right out when the saw they were trapped but they did jump in with the objective to knock out the fort and hold the terminus.

If you're talking about the planned attack on the Basilisk terminus during Icarus, then the Havenite force was never 'trapped', at least not to their knowledge. They overshot their intended arrival point and had to turn around, giving time for White Haven to mount a double-transit from Trevor's Star with 8th Fleet and roll enough pods that you could walk from his flagship to Astro Control. The Peep admiral had no idea what he was up against until the first wave of missiles launched, by which time it was far too late to evade.

Well, once the missiles launched he was "trapped" by the minimum cycle time on his SD's hyper generators.

We've got some numbers from this infodump. The one we're missing is Routine Readiness to Standby Readiness; but their was probably enough time (they had 84 minutes) to get the Havenite's generators back up to Standby before they got back into range to attack the forts.

But White Haven waited until they were only 5 million KM away, and he was able to engage with full powered missile shots (95,000g) which means under 3 minute flight time (1.7 minute by my calculations) -- way too little time for the Havenite's to hyper out even if they'd hit the button the instant they saw the missiles launch.

(Incidentally I'd forgotten that he'd exposed part of the capabilities of the MDMs there. 5 million km is within SDM range, but only with a half power shot; not the full power shots White Haven used. He needed most of the 2nd drive's endurance to pull of the flight profile he used)

But back to C. O. Thompson's point about being able to jump in there at all, jumping in off to the side of (or behind) the terminus should keep you clear of the RZ because the triangle comes to a point at the terminus; with the danger zone fanning out towards the hyper limit. So come out several million km off to either side and you're fine; though there's still some risk that a nav error will cause you to hit the RZ anyway (ouch).

If the Havenite attack had hit their aim point they'd have blown away the forts before White Haven arrived (even though he started coming when the 1st part of the trap, the in-system attack, was sprung). However I think the RHN ships' residual momentum would have carried them out of range before White Haven's wall came through. So at least a perfectly executed version of their plan wouldn't have had the RHN back in place to slaughter White Haven's unexpectedly early relief force. He'd have had a little time to organize before they managed to kill their momentum and come back. I think (but I didn't rerun the numbers on that)

C. O. Thompson wrote:The junction is in a binary star system this would have an amplification effect on the RZ. Didn't one half of the Havanite Navy jump in close to the wormhole at Baslisk? I don't recall why they did not jump right out when the saw they were trapped but they did jump in with the objective to knock out the fort and hold the terminus.

Nope, the Havenite force assigned to attack the Basilisk terminus missed its target and overshot. Their plan was to carry some velocity over from the alpha wall and emerge short of the target, so they'd be on an intercept course.

They emerged beyond the target, moving away from it. Jumping back out would cost even more time than reversing course and there was no guarantee of microjumping onto an intercept course from such a close range anyway.

Jonathan_S wrote:
But back to C. O. Thompson's point about being able to jump in there at all, jumping in off to the side of (or behind) the terminus should keep you clear of the RZ because the triangle comes to a point at the terminus; with the danger zone fanning out towards the hyper limit. So come out several million km off to either side and you're fine; though there's still some risk that a nav error will cause you to hit the RZ anyway (ouch).

<snip>

In addition to the other points about resonance zones, iirc, the region around the terminus itself also has a sphere around it with random grav spikes radiating out from the terminus, past the resonance cone, with the size being roughly dependent on the "size' of the wormhole. These grav spikes are deadly as well, and jumping into this volume is tantamount to calculated suicide.

The chances are, no terminus will allow you to safely jump in inside of energy range of the wormhole

Theemile wrote:

Jonathan_S wrote:
But back to C. O. Thompson's point about being able to jump in there at all, jumping in off to the side of (or behind) the terminus should keep you clear of the RZ because the triangle comes to a point at the terminus; with the danger zone fanning out towards the hyper limit. So come out several million km off to either side and you're fine; though there's still some risk that a nav error will cause you to hit the RZ anyway (ouch).

<snip>

In addition to the other points about resonance zones, iirc, the region around the terminus itself also has a sphere around it with random grav spikes radiating out from the terminus, past the resonance cone, with the size being roughly dependent on the "size' of the wormhole. These grav spikes are deadly as well, and jumping into this volume is tantamount to calculated suicide.

The chances are, no terminus will allow you to safely jump in inside of energy range of the wormhole

Well, yes. I guess I kind of glossed over that with the "several million km" away.

Dafmeister wrote:

C. O. Thompson wrote:
The junction is in a binary star system this would have an amplification effect on the RZ. Didn't one half of the Havanite Navy jump in close to the wormhole at Baslisk? I don't recall why they did not jump right out when the saw they were trapped but they did jump in with the objective to knock out the fort and hold the terminus.

If you're talking about the planned attack on the Basilisk terminus during Icarus, then the Havenite force was never 'trapped', at least not to their knowledge. They overshot their intended arrival point and had to turn around, giving time for White Haven to mount a double-transit from Trevor's Star with 8th Fleet and roll enough pods that you could walk from his flagship to Astro Control. The Peep admiral had no idea what he was up against until the first wave of missiles launched, by which time it was far too late to evade.

Well... I figure that they did not get away before they got the snot kicked out of them is pretty much the same as being trapped. Could they have jumped out? The termini is a long way from the planet and presumably from the star in that system.
Also, I understood the the comment that I had posted a reply to had to do with the difficulty of an attack or counter attack in Beowulf...

munroburton wrote:

C. O. Thompson wrote:The junction is in a binary star system this would have an amplification effect on the RZ. Didn't one half of the Havanite Navy jump in close to the wormhole at Baslisk? I don't recall why they did not jump right out when the saw they were trapped but they did jump in with the objective to knock out the fort and hold the terminus.

Nope, the Havenite force assigned to attack the Basilisk terminus missed its target and overshot. Their plan was to carry some velocity over from the alpha wall and emerge short of the target, so they'd be on an intercept course.

They emerged beyond the target, moving away from it. Jumping back out would cost even more time than reversing course and there was no guarantee of microjumping onto an intercept course from such a close range anyway.

OK munroburton, could they have jumped out of the system to avoid conflict??? Any way I think Jonathan answered my confusion but I understood the real question was about alliance ships jumping into Beowulf to counter an attack by SLN

If you read a few of my posts in the past you may have seen me state "I have been rong before..."

Jonathan_S wrote:There are limits to how well you can rule by fear, and a successful strike against Beowulf is definitely going down the rule by fear path.

The would also stretch believably trying to claim victory over Manticore and its' ally's and then get the funds to build replacements for the ships they lost or to get the crew to operate them.