SPOILER end of the MA

PeterZ wrote:Not sidewall, bubble wall. Much like the buckler sidewall of the Sag-Cs. Doesn't stitch to anthing, but does exist to protect the ship. It follows that creating such sidewalls all around the ship is possible. Text pretty much states the same.

kzt wrote:Yup. Can't maneuver with that up, but if you are just flying through a formation at say 0.1C it gives you cover for the roughly 40 seconds you are in energy range. And spiders have 360 degree weapon mounts, no dead zones. So you start shooting at 2 LS and simultaneously bring up the bubble, and your 8 meter grasers start firing at rapid mode, so maybe 5-8 shots each during the next 40 seconds.

This is also when the stealthed missile pods you earlier dropped deploy their missiles to keep the few alert people who might be capable of causing you issues busy for the next 60 seconds or so.

And then you dump a bunch of decoys, drop the bubble, change course and spider away from the cloud of wreckage.

Not sure about not being able to manoeuver with the bubble wall on the Spyder ships. We know that a closed forward aspect of an impeller wedge prevents the wedge from accellerating. A buckler doesn't close the wedge and so allows accelleration.

Does the Spyder "legs" have the same limitation? Not sure. Perhaps the "legs" can still operate through holes in the bubble wall and pull the ship forward while the rest of bubble is up.

PeterZ wrote:

PeterZ wrote:Not sidewall, bubble wall. Much like the buckler sidewall of the Sag-Cs. Doesn't stitch to anthing, but does exist to protect the ship. It follows that creating such sidewalls all around the ship is possible. Text pretty much states the same.

kzt wrote:Yup. Can't maneuver with that up, but if you are just flying through a formation at say 0.1C it gives you cover for the roughly 40 seconds you are in energy range. And spiders have 360 degree weapon mounts, no dead zones. So you start shooting at 2 LS and simultaneously bring up the bubble, and your 8 meter grasers start firing at rapid mode, so maybe 5-8 shots each during the next 40 seconds.

This is also when the stealthed missile pods you earlier dropped deploy their missiles to keep the few alert people who might be capable of causing you issues busy for the next 60 seconds or so.

And then you dump a bunch of decoys, drop the bubble, change course and spider away from the cloud of wreckage.

Not sure about not being able to manoeuver with the bubble wall on the Spyder ships. We know that a closed forward aspect of an impeller wedge prevents the wedge from accellerating. A buckler doesn't close the wedge and so allows accelleration.

Does the Spyder "legs" have the same limitation? Not sure. Perhaps the "legs" can still operate through holes in the bubble wall and pull the ship forward while the rest of bubble is up.

David said on the forums that like a wedge, the spider and the bubble sidewalls cannot work simultaneously, but spider ships can mount Bubble sidewalls. You will still have thrusters, but those are good for what, 50gs max?

As for existing in universe - Forts have them, and large warships can field them, but have rarely done so - they are mass intensive and do not scale down well. With normal ship design, the wedge protects (and Allows) huge unarmored portions of ships - which in turn allows more armor (and stronger sidewalls) on the aspects not protected by the Wedges. So having a duplicate, mass intensive protection system, which partially exposes the unarmored ventral and dorsal faces of a ship and restricts movement is normally foolish.

Since Spiders cannot use sidewalls, and (as far as we know) do not know about buckler tech, bubble sidewalls makes sense, for moments just like this. But if the battle is not short and sweet, The bubble is going to turn into a big homing beacon, drawling fire from every opponent in the system and keeping the spider ship from silently escaping.

Theemile wrote:David said on the forums that the spider and the bubble sidewalls cannot work simultaneously, but spider ships can mount Bubble sidewalls. You will still have thrusters, but those are good for what, 50gs max?

The Havenite ships captured by Honor's forces at Cerberus could do ~150g on thrusters. Spider ships could use a bubble sidewall without any appreciable loss in acceleration.

It burns fuel at an alarming rate, though.

munroburton wrote:

Theemile wrote:David said on the forums that the spider and the bubble sidewalls cannot work simultaneously, but spider ships can mount Bubble sidewalls. You will still have thrusters, but those are good for what, 50gs max?

The Havenite ships captured by Honor's forces at Cerberus could do ~150g on thrusters. Spider ships could use a bubble sidewall without any appreciable loss in acceleration.

It burns fuel at an alarming rate, though.

Yeah, it sounds like the Spider drive accel is limited only by the efficiency of the counter grav system the ship uses. The drive could accelerate much more, but the forces would turn nearly anything attached to it into dust. Well, either that or have the drive be ripped from the rest of the ship.

pappilon wrote:

Joat42 wrote:Uhm, why would the RF attack the GA? Talk about outing yourself as the MAlign which would be extremely stupid.

At the end of UH, absolutely none whatsoever. But this discussion has time-jumped to OMG The Grantville government has become the Janacek government of military incompetents,asleep at the switch while their known enemies have spent the past 20 years researching, developing and deploying superior in YUGE numbers.

When at that point the MAlign- which includes the Renaissance Factor- will begin executing its Final Solution

So basically a totally pointless discussion on how the MAlign have a big 'I WIN!' button which they will wack Manticore with without taking into consideration everyone else that want to find and kill them? You know, the Andies, Beowulf, Erewhon, Torch, Grayson, Haven and possibly other parties? Or have they all devolved into navel gazers in this make believe future?

PeterZ wrote:Yeah, it sounds like the Spider drive accel is limited only by the efficiency of the counter grav system the ship uses.

Graser Torpedoes don't accelerate much faster than spider drive ships, IIRC.

Joat42 wrote:So basically a totally pointless discussion on how the MAlign have a big 'I WIN!' button which they will wack Manticore with without taking into consideration everyone else that want to find and kill them? You know, the Andies, Beowulf, Erewhon, Torch, Grayson, Haven and possibly other parties? Or have they all devolved into navel gazers in this make believe future?

It's heavily implied that the original Operation Oyster Bay was indeed going to hit at least Manticore, Grayson and Haven and probably the Andermani, Zanzibar, Alizon, Erewhonese, etc., as well. An all-out attack to eliminate the entire Manticoran Alliance and PRH's infrastructure so they couldn't stop the SLN from rolling over them.

One theory is that a mere two or three Lenny Dets could have carried out the Oyster Bay which actually happened. If they're building scores of the things...

Weird Harold wrote:

PeterZ wrote:Yeah, it sounds like the Spider drive accel is limited only by the efficiency of the counter grav system the ship uses.

Graser Torpedoes don't accelerate much faster than spider drive ships, IIRC.

What's the tensil strength of the weakest component of the torpedos? Odds are that some of the components will deform at Gs not much higher than that which biological life forms can tolerate.

munroburton wrote:

Joat42 wrote:So basically a totally pointless discussion on how the MAlign have a big 'I WIN!' button which they will wack Manticore with without taking into consideration everyone else that want to find and kill them? You know, the Andies, Beowulf, Erewhon, Torch, Grayson, Haven and possibly other parties? Or have they all devolved into navel gazers in this make believe future?

It's heavily implied that the original Operation Oyster Bay was indeed going to hit at least Manticore, Grayson and Haven and probably the Andermani, Zanzibar, Alizon, Erewhonese, etc., as well. An all-out attack to eliminate the entire Manticoran Alliance and PRH's infrastructure so they couldn't stop the SLN from rolling over them.

One theory is that a mere two or three Lenny Dets could have carried out the Oyster Bay which actually happened. If they're building scores of the things...

So? It was supposed to, but we are way past that point. The only way for the RF to be able to gut the GA and other parties is that they have enough naval units to attack everyone and make it stick, because the moment they attack anyone it's all or nothing for them because the proposed preemptive sneak attacks will point a fat finger to the MAlign.

The discussion is pointless because it doesn't make any sense unless you are willing to believe everyone not in the MAlign suddenly became drooling idiots.

kzt wrote:Because it is so written?

And it was written that little to no industry was on those stations?