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Prediction: Spider Drive=Grav Lance

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Re: Prediction: Spider Drive=Grav Lance
Post by Weird Harold   » Wed Mar 16, 2016 3:31 am

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Tyrant of Null wrote:I'm pretty sure sidewall shape can be change to fit the need, don't the spider drive ships have 3 sidewalls 1 between each keel?


IIRC, Spider Drive ships have sperical sidewalls -- one per ship -- and can't use the spider drive through the "sidewall;" more of a spherical shield than a sidewall although it's the same technology as Forts use.
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Re: Prediction: Spider Drive=Grav Lance
Post by Tyrant of Null   » Wed Mar 16, 2016 3:58 am

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Weird Harold wrote:IIRC, Spider Drive ships have sperical sidewalls -- one per ship -- and can't use the spider drive through the "sidewall;" more of a spherical shield than a sidewall although it's the same technology as Forts use.


That seems to a be major tactical disadvantage to me, as once found they just become a target to pound apon as they couldn't escape. as a captain I'd still want to able to maneuver. I can't see why the globe wall couldn't be modified to operate around the area covered by spider drive, after all RMN ships can change between buckler and full stern or bow wall if they need to. Also it means they run along until they detected or attack without a globewall at all. And don't side & globewalls take time to become fully active? If you were a smart captain who detected them early you could wait to the opportune time then attack!
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Re: Prediction: Spider Drive=Grav Lance
Post by The E   » Wed Mar 16, 2016 5:22 am

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Tyrant of Null wrote:That seems to a be major tactical disadvantage to me, as once found they just become a target to pound apon as they couldn't escape. as a captain I'd still want to able to maneuver. I can't see why the globe wall couldn't be modified to operate around the area covered by spider drive, after all RMN ships can change between buckler and full stern or bow wall if they need to. Also it means they run along until they detected or attack without a globewall at all. And don't side & globewalls take time to become fully active? If you were a smart captain who detected them early you could wait to the opportune time then attack!


That is the massive drawback spider drive ships all share. Their usefulness declines rapidly once the other side knows they exist, and drops off a cliff once methods to detect them beyond energy range are found. They are, ultimately, not line combatants; their best use is to do deep strikes on infrastructure targets, as terror weapons, or as scouts in preparation of an attack by conventional forces (There may also be a place for them as a sort of forward observer role, taking over terminal guidance for MDMs and such).

The point is, trying to increase their usefulness as line combatants is pure stupidity. It's like trying to fit AEGIS to a submarine; noone in their right mind would do it.
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Re: Prediction: Spider Drive=Grav Lance
Post by George J. Smith   » Wed Mar 16, 2016 5:26 am

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I have an idea that when the LD SDs are put into action there is going to be a real interference problem with the design that the Malignment "Supermen" did not foresee, and thus they will not be the "invisible" ships they thought they would be.
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Re: Prediction: Spider Drive=Grav Lance
Post by munroburton   » Wed Mar 16, 2016 5:38 am

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Tyrant of Null wrote:
Weird Harold wrote:IIRC, Spider Drive ships have sperical sidewalls -- one per ship -- and can't use the spider drive through the "sidewall;" more of a spherical shield than a sidewall although it's the same technology as Forts use.


That seems to a be major tactical disadvantage to me, as once found they just become a target to pound apon as they couldn't escape. as a captain I'd still want to able to maneuver. I can't see why the globe wall couldn't be modified to operate around the area covered by spider drive, after all RMN ships can change between buckler and full stern or bow wall if they need to. Also it means they run along until they detected or attack without a globewall at all. And don't side & globewalls take time to become fully active? If you were a smart captain who detected them early you could wait to the opportune time then attack!


Yeah, this forum has been trying to work out how spider drive warships can possibly succeed against conventional fleet assets for years.

The answer is they probably can't, outside of a few ambush scenarios. Some people seem to forget the big Detweiler-class were supposed to carry Oyster Bay out; against all of Haven's yards and possibly the Andermani's as well as Manticore and Grayson. It wasn't ever made clear if the original plan was to bust up the defensive fleets next to those shipyards but implied at least enough would be spared in order to finish each other and the SLN.

In that sense, it's very similar to a nuclear missile submarine - a strategical first-strike weapon targeting infrastructure(and populations). Whilst those could take out surface warships occasionally, it isn't really their job to do so.

Part of me thinks the Detweilers are now nothing more than white elephants, built to carry out a plan that has already been actioned and is unrepeatable against the original targets. The rest of me knows there's still a shoe or two waiting to drop.
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Re: Prediction: Spider Drive=Grav Lance
Post by Tyrant of Null   » Wed Mar 16, 2016 6:02 am

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munroburton wrote:Part of me thinks the Detweilers are now nothing more than white elephants, built to carry out a plan that has already been actioned and is unrepeatable against the original targets. The rest of me knows there's still a shoe or two waiting to drop.


I don't think the MA would be building white Elephants, so theres obviously something DW hasn't told us about yet which will possibly be revealed hopefully in the next book in half a years time.
The fact the MA is building SD size ships like the Detwellers indicates they think they will be effective even when detected.
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Re: Prediction: Spider Drive=Grav Lance
Post by Montrose Toast   » Wed Mar 16, 2016 6:53 am

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I suspect the Dets are the equivalent of post WWI Cruiser Subs - Heavy guns. Not as effective as envisioned.

Note that the 12 member planets of MAlign also have growing conventional fleets - the spiders are the covert 13th fleet.
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Re: Prediction: Spider Drive=Grav Lance
Post by The E   » Wed Mar 16, 2016 6:59 am

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Tyrant of Null wrote:I don't think the MA would be building white Elephants, so theres obviously something DW hasn't told us about yet which will possibly be revealed hopefully in the next book in half a years time.
The fact the MA is building SD size ships like the Detwellers indicates they think they will be effective even when detected.


Always remember that the Alignment is currently running on a massively accelerated schedule. They wanted to wait a decade or two before kicking things off, but a few things happened that made it necessary to start things early. The Detweilers were designed to carry out the Oyster Bay strikes; while the Alignment probably had secondary uses for them in mind afterwards, there is no telling whether they're actually still needed right now.
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Re: Prediction: Spider Drive=Grav Lance
Post by darrell   » Wed Mar 16, 2016 7:47 am

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One similarity between a wedge and the spider drive is that both have to pull power from hyperspace, otherwise the spider drive ships have to have more mass in bunkerage than the rest of the ship combined in order to operate. If all the power to operate the drive is produced by onboard power, it dosen't matter if the power is used by a reaction drive or some other type of drive.

I would be willing to bet that the leakage of that power transfer from hyperspace is detectable some way by some type of sensor.

Valen123456 wrote:
darrell wrote:shanan and sonja will togeather have a eureka moment....

A modification of the grav lance can find a spider drive ship at a huge range, like 5 light minutes. :lol:

Let me add that I have an abysmal track record of predicting what DW does.


It would be a nice little narrative quirk to have something right from the very first novel shaping the events of the final few. It would make a sort to sense for something like this.

It has been explicitly stated that a Spiders Legs do not create a detectable gravity ripple like a grav pulse comm, but I would bet that the Legs spikes could create a distortion in a artificial field. Modern military's can track submerged submarines by detecting the warp in the earths magnetic field that a huge lump of metal can create. Given the Honorverses state of technology, why not create your own field that can be monitored more easily.

What if the same "science" or tech that is used to create a grav lance field is adapted or reverse engineered to create a big artificial field, not focused enough to actually do anything but enough to alter how normal space behaves. The node carrier (either a ship or a drone) would probably be paralyzed when this setup is active but it would lay down something like a vast 3D rubber sheet or web. Then when a Spider Drive passes through it creates a ripple or distorts the field enough that they can be both detected and located.

This method could be used as a patrol tactic, with either a bigger ship or a modified drone (something with powerful nodes anyway) sitting in the center of the field (or a linked network of emitters), with smaller ships arranged around them to home in on anything detected.
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Re: Prediction: Spider Drive=Grav Lance
Post by Tyrant of Null   » Wed Mar 16, 2016 8:29 am

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darrell wrote:One similarity between a wedge and the spider drive is that both have to pull power from hyperspace, otherwise the spider drive ships have to have more mass in bunkerage than the rest of the ship combined in order to operate. If all the power to operate the drive is produced by onboard power, it dosen't matter if the power is used by a reaction drive or some other type of drive.


Correct me if I'm wrong but I can't remember anywhere it has been stated that either the wedge or spider drives draw any energy from hyperspace, they both just interact with the alpha wall to give normal space acceleration. All power is supplied by shipboard reacters.
Don't you actually have to be in a gravity wave in hyper space to draw energy from it?
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