Spider drive ships and technical limitations

Thinking about things like surface tension and hyper and stuff ...


Hypering out must make a signal, though nowhere near as strong as hypering in does.

Picture a kids bath and a few rubber ducks.
Dropping a duck into the water creates a big ripple.
Placing a duck in slowly creates a small ripple.
Taking one out creates even smaller ripples, especially if done slowly.

Annachie wrote:Hypering out must make a signal, though nowhere near as strong as hypering in does.

IIRC, RFC said that "hypering out" does create a footprint, it is just on the wrong side of the hyper-wall to detect from N-Space.

Weird Harold wrote:

Annachie wrote:Hypering out must make a signal, though nowhere near as strong as hypering in does.

IIRC, RFC said that "hypering out" does create a footprint, it is just on the wrong side of the hyper-wall to detect from N-Space.

So hypering in creates a footprint in normal space (but doesn't leave one behind in the alpha band) while hypering out creates a footprint in the alpha band (but not in normal space)? I wonder if that's a general principle across all the bands of hyperspace.

Peregrinator wrote:So hypering in creates a footprint in normal space (but doesn't leave one behind in the alpha band) while hypering out creates a footprint in the alpha band (but not in normal space)? I wonder if that's a general principle across all the bands of hyperspace.

Probably true. All hyper translations - up or down - involve losing a huge percentage of the ship's momentum, and that energy is probably dumped into destination hyper band along with the ship. So alpha-beta translation dumps energy into the beta band and beta-alpha translation dumps energy into the alpha band. It's just mostly irrelevant because there's no arrays with light-month detection ranges in hyper to detect those energy spikes and the odds that an enemy ship is going to be close enough for shipboard detection is tiny. The odds of them detecting a transition and being in a position to do anything about it is even lower.

Galactic Sapper wrote:Probably true. All hyper translations - up or down - involve losing a huge percentage of the ship's momentum, and that energy is probably dumped into destination hyper band along with the ship. So alpha-beta translation dumps energy into the beta band and beta-alpha translation dumps energy into the alpha band. It's just mostly irrelevant because there's no arrays with light-month detection ranges in hyper to detect those energy spikes and the odds that an enemy ship is going to be close enough for shipboard detection is tiny. The odds of them detecting a transition and being in a position to do anything about it is even lower.

Not true. Let’s say you are a pirate sitting on the hyperlimit in alpha. A merchant crosses alpha, emitting a huge signal. On alpha the hyperlimit is 40 light seconds in diameter. What are the odds that that merchant is in SDM range of the pirate?

If you are a smart pirate and understand the traffic flow and have positioned yourself on the most economical path between this system and it’s biggest trading partner, what are the odds that you’ve managed to be within a light minute of where the merchant crosses the limit. On Alpha that’s Energy Range. The End.

kzt wrote:

Galactic Sapper wrote:Probably true. All hyper translations - up or down - involve losing a huge percentage of the ship's momentum, and that energy is probably dumped into destination hyper band along with the ship. So alpha-beta translation dumps energy into the beta band and beta-alpha translation dumps energy into the alpha band. It's just mostly irrelevant because there's no arrays with light-month detection ranges in hyper to detect those energy spikes and the odds that an enemy ship is going to be close enough for shipboard detection is tiny. The odds of them detecting a transition and being in a position to do anything about it is even lower.

Not true. Let’s say you are a pirate sitting on the hyperlimit in alpha. A merchant crosses alpha, emitting a huge signal. On alpha the hyperlimit is 40 light seconds in diameter. What are the odds that that merchant is in SDM range of the pirate?

If you are a smart pirate and understand the traffic flow and have positioned yourself on the most economical path between this system and it’s biggest trading partner, what are the odds that you’ve managed to be within a light minute of where the merchant crosses the limit. On Alpha that’s Energy Range. The End.

You made my point for me. Pirates and others wait in ambush where they expect to see alpha-normal space transitions. They don't wait in the alpha band waiting for ships to translate UP, nor do they attempt to ambush ships making the beta-alpha translation.

On alpha the hyperlimit is 40 light seconds in diameter.

I think you meant the sensor horizon here, not the hyper limit. And even there, sensors just lose sensitivity at that range. A massive hyper footprint might be detected at a significantly longer range. But yes, it's pretty low odds that a ship will be in range to detect a inter-band hyper translation.

what are the odds that you’ve managed to be within a light minute of where the merchant crosses the limit. On Alpha that’s Energy Range. The End.

Energy range is only about 3 light seconds even against undefended targets. Not anywhere close to a light minute.

Galactic Sapper wrote:

kzt wrote:Not true. Let’s say you are a pirate sitting on the hyperlimit in alpha. A merchant crosses alpha, emitting a huge signal. On alpha the hyperlimit is 40 light seconds in diameter. What are the odds that that merchant is in SDM range of the pirate?

If you are a smart pirate and understand the traffic flow and have positioned yourself on the most economical path between this system and it’s biggest trading partner, what are the odds that you’ve managed to be within a light minute of where the merchant crosses the limit. On Alpha that’s Energy Range. The End.

You made my point for me. Pirates and others wait in ambush where they expect to see alpha-normal space transitions. They don't wait in the alpha band waiting for ships to translate UP, nor do they attempt to ambush ships making the beta-alpha translation.

On alpha the hyperlimit is 40 light seconds in diameter.

I think you meant the sensor horizon here, not the hyper limit. And even there, sensors just lose sensitivity at that range. A massive hyper footprint might be detected at a significantly longer range. But yes, it's pretty low odds that a ship will be in range to detect a inter-band hyper translation.

what are the odds that you’ve managed to be within a light minute of where the merchant crosses the limit. On Alpha that’s Energy Range. The End.

Energy range is only about 3 light seconds even against undefended targets. Not anywhere close to a light minute.

Actually no, kzt is suggesting (as he has before) that given how hyperspace is described it would make more sense for a pirate to wait in hyper.

1) When a freighter jumps into hyper it's going to be 10 minutes or so before they could possible jump back out (hyper generator need to recharge)

2) If we assume the 62:1 compression of the Alpha bands:Normal space is uniform that turns a 44 light minute diameter hyper limit (like Manticores) into just a 42.6 light seconds area in the Alpha bands - so a ship sitting in the middle should be able to see any upward transition and rapidly engage with energy weapons (even given the crappy sensor conditions)

The part I wonder about is whether all ships have to stop in each set of bands to recharge their hyper generator.
The description of Honor's convoy approaching Grayson way back in HOTQ shows that ships can make a continuous transition down through multiple hyper bands (they drop from Delta to normal space through all the interveining bands in a continuous transition). If the same is true for upward transitions then it wouldn't do any good to lurk in the Alpha bands as you'd just see a momentary flash as a departing ship transitioned through heading to a higher band. By the time you triggered your hyper genertor (still a minute or more depending on ship size to activae even from the highest readiness state) your quarry has probably slipped away into the vast reaches of hyper.
You'd have to guess their destination hyper band.
(It's also not clear if sensor can see all the sub-bands within, say, Alpha. If not then a ship might have several dozen target bands to hide in, rather than just 4 for merchies (Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Delta)


But there must be some reason - beyond Pirates being stupid - that we always see them lunking in normal space looking for inbound ships rather than in hyperspace looking for outbound ones...

Apaet from the obvious.

An inbound ship, you know where it's going.

An outbound ship, you only have a broad idea.

Jonathan_S wrote:snip

1) When a freighter jumps into hyper it's going to be 10 minutes or so before they could possible jump back out (hyper generator need to recharge).

Isn't exiting hyper simply a downward transition? And downward transitions from band to band need no recharging?

cthia wrote:

Jonathan_S wrote:snip

1) When a freighter jumps into hyper it's going to be 10 minutes or so before they could possible jump back out (hyper generator need to recharge).

Isn't exiting hyper simply a downward transition? And downward transitions from band to band need no recharging?

In The Short Victorious War Rob S. Pierre's son accidently transits next to a RMN DN and is blown away. From chapter 14:

"Contact! Enemy vessel bearing oh-five-three, oh-oh-six, range five-seven-four thousand kilometers!"

Pierre jerked in his command chair and twisted toward his ops officer's sudden, unanticipated report. They should be eleven light-minutes from their target! What the hell was the woman talking about?!

"Contact confirmed!" Selim's tac officer called out, and then— "Oh, my God! It's a dreadnought!"

Disbelief froze the admiral's mind. It couldn't be—not way the hell out here! But he was already turning back to his own display, and his heart lurched as it showed him CIC's confirming identification.

"Put us back into hyper!"

"We can't translate for another eight minutes, Sir," Selim's white-faced captain said. "The generators are still cycling."

Admiral Chin's force had a similar problem with cycle time in the Battle of Manticore.