Forts & Energy Weapons

Galactic Sapper wrote:

Dauntless wrote:forts stealthy? doubtful but pods should be.

why? forts have sidewalls and wedges and PDLC and armour. pods are VERY fragile as we have seen time and again in the books, so by rights a ship doing maintenance should have some stealth so that any innocent looking freighter/dispatch boat that goes through the junction can't immediately tell others where the pods were.

Why bother? The pods aren't close enough to the junction to be hit with energy fire, and missiles would take long enough to get there for the ready forts to target and launch from those pods. For ships, the pods being heavily stealthed makes sense. Not as much so for fixed defenses. Everyone knows they're around somewhere, right?

Or they could rely on concealment rather than stealth. Instead of having pods floating free near the forts, have a few freighter-looking ships that consist of a thin core linking drive ends with layers upon layers of pods linked to that core. The pod maintenance people can stay on the ship with direct access to the pods - no potentially revealing boats working among the pods. At need the ships spew pods in every direction and the core can run or take up position as a block ship for the industrial/shipping/control stations near the junction. Think of it as an extreme variant of an ammunition ship.

This way the pods can be physically linked to the ship core rather than having to tractor themselves all the time.

That's my take as well. Everyone knows the area around forts is laden with pods. You even want them to know. Your enemy knowing is counted as part of the deterrence. Like prisoners in jail seeing armed guards in the guard houses.

As you mentioned, pods strategically dropped off by ships should be stealthy, but pods in a fort's airspace I wouldn't think so. And of course, arbitrary shoals of pods scattered surreptitiously about the system should be stealthed.

Dauntless wrote:forts stealthy? doubtful but pods should be.

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Galactic Sapper wrote:...
Or they could rely on concealment rather than stealth. ...

cthia wrote:...

As you mentioned, pods strategically dropped off by ships should be stealthy, but pods in a fort's airspace I wouldn't think so. And of course, arbitrary shoals of pods scattered surreptitiously about the system should be stealthed.

Pods ARE stealthy. They're designed to be stealthy and made from stealthy materials and covered with "Radar Absorbing Material." Unless the recovery beacon is turned on so the can be found for routine maintenance, they ARE stealthy. It would be absolutely pointless to build special non-stealthy pods just for forts to deploy.

Weird Harold wrote:

Dauntless wrote:forts stealthy? doubtful but pods should be.

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Galactic Sapper wrote:...
Or they could rely on concealment rather than stealth. ...

cthia wrote:...

As you mentioned, pods strategically dropped off by ships should be stealthy, but pods in a fort's airspace I wouldn't think so. And of course, arbitrary shoals of pods scattered surreptitiously about the system should be stealthed.

Pods ARE stealthy. They're designed to be stealthy and made from stealthy materials and covered with "Radar Absorbing Material." Unless the recovery beacon is turned on so the can be found for routine maintenance, they ARE stealthy. It would be absolutely pointless to build special non-stealthy pods just for forts to deploy.

Holster that iron cowboy.

You're missing the gist of this particular conversation. It reared its head discussing the possibility of using tractors to keep pods on station. It may render the pods visible, which prompted the question, "Would that necessarily be a bad thing in the case of forts?"

cthia wrote:You're missing the gist of this particular conversation. It reared its head discussing the possibility of using tractors to keep pods on station. It may render the pods visible, which prompted the question, "Would that necessarily be a bad thing in the case of forts?"

Haven's "Mule" system allows for tractoring on the kind of numbers distributed around the forts/WHJ. The RMN does't (yet) have a similar capability.

The only need I can see for tractoring pods is to pull them in for maintenance. In normal deployment there's no need to keep them on a precise station; it is probably more effective to just set them on a predetermined course and let them drift. Randomize the course with each return of pods after maintenance (with safeguards to prevent collision courses) and knowing where and what paths pods are on would be outdated information by the time it could be delivered to an attacking force.

Even if tractors reveal locations, the beacons that permit locating pods to tractor them are going to out-shine any minor compromise due to the tractor beams. But since the only time I can see a need for tractors is immediately prior to maintenance and re-deployment on a new trajectory revealing the locations is a moot point; they aren't going to be there when an attack commences. Revealing the small percentage of pods due routine maintenance can only give a hint on total numbers if the remainder maintain stealth (eg don't turn on the locator beacons.)

Weird Harold wrote:

cthia wrote:You're missing the gist of this particular conversation. It reared its head discussing the possibility of using tractors to keep pods on station. It may render the pods visible, which prompted the question, "Would that necessarily be a bad thing in the case of forts?"

Haven's "Mule" system allows for tractoring on the kind of numbers distributed around the forts/WHJ. The RMN does't (yet) have a similar capability.

The only need I can see for tractoring pods is to pull them in for maintenance. In normal deployment there's no need to keep them on a precise station; it is probably more effective to just set them on a predetermined course and let them drift. Randomize the course with each return of pods after maintenance (with safeguards to prevent collision courses) and knowing where and what paths pods are on would be outdated information by the time it could be delivered to an attacking force.

Even if tractors reveal locations, the beacons that permit locating pods to tractor them are going to out-shine any minor compromise due to the tractor beams. But since the only time I can see a need for tractors is immediately prior to maintenance and re-deployment on a new trajectory revealing the locations is a moot point; they aren't going to be there when an attack commences. Revealing the small percentage of pods due routine maintenance can only give a hint on total numbers if the remainder maintain stealth (eg don't turn on the locator beacons.)

Well, I'm sure I can generate a scenario or two where you might want to utilize tractoring to tow. Especially in a system that isn't as heavily defended as the Home system.

"Safeguards to prevent collision courses," sounds suspiciously like using reaction thrusters, defeating the "drift notion."

In fact, isn't the Mule's tractoring ability for purposes of towing?

cthia wrote:Well, I'm sure I can generate a scenario or two where you might want to utilize tractoring to tow. Especially in a system that isn't as heavily defended as the Home system.

Wouldn't just sucking the into a freighter be more efficient and faster? You would be able to move many more pods than tractoring them; even if you have access to a virtually unlimited number of RHN "Mules".

cthia wrote:"Safeguards to prevent collision courses," sounds suspiciously like using reaction thrusters, defeating the "drift notion."

Pods do include reaction thrusters, but I was thinking more of rejecting any randomly generated course that don't intersect with any other randomly generated course.

cthia wrote:In fact, isn't the Mule's tractoring ability for purposes of towing?

The Mules were indeed developed to increase the towed pod capacity of ships. One tractor with broadcast power towing a mule with eight tractors with broadcast power towing seven missile pods and one Mule which is towing seven missile pods and one Mule -- repeat ad nauseum until the broadcast power or weight limit of the ship's tractor is exceeded.

But since the only new-model forts are around the MWHJ and (some of) it's termini, RHN Mules aren't really an option.

Weird Harold wrote:

cthia wrote:Well, I'm sure I can generate a scenario or two where you might want to utilize tractoring to tow. Especially in a system that isn't as heavily defended as the Home system.

Wouldn't just sucking the into a freighter be more efficient and faster? You would be able to move many more pods than tractoring them; even if you have access to a virtually unlimited number of RHN "Mules".

I would suspect you are right Harold. I would also suspect that whatever vehicle deploys pods en masse has a mechanism for recovering them quickly.

But again, "we're" missing the gist of the original conversation. We're considering the ability of forts to tow pods, in the unlikely but very real possibility that push comes to shove and a particular fort or forts have to fend for themselves. See the post upstream where a fort may be forced out of the pocket of its protective shell.

cthia wrote:"Safeguards to prevent collision courses," sounds suspiciously like using reaction thrusters, defeating the "drift notion."

Weird Harold wrote:Pods do include reaction thrusters, but I was thinking more of rejecting any randomly generated course that don't intersect with any other randomly generated course.

I see, but that seems too complicated a system. I'm sure pods have to be wary of each other, but thrusters would undoubtedly remain used for that. The collision detector out of one of my cars could warn of a collision. LOL

But seriously, reaction thrusters has to remain part of the equation even if tractors are developed to keep them on station because when pods are activated by an enemy and begin to seek, they mustn't be susceptible to collision courses. And at that point tractors are too late.

cthia wrote:In fact, isn't the Mule's tractoring ability for purposes of towing?

Weird Harold wrote:The Mules were indeed developed to increase the towed pod capacity of ships. One tractor with broadcast power towing a mule with eight tractors with broadcast power towing seven missile pods and one Mule which is towing seven missile pods and one Mule -- repeat ad nauseum until the broadcast power or weight limit of the ship's tractor is exceeded.

But since the only new-model forts are around the MWHJ and (some of) it's termini, RHN Mules aren't really an option.

Sounds like some fashion of the Mules could be adopted for forts, in the "unlikely" event a fort finds itself on its own - and out on that one limb found in space - and need to tactically redeploy and take some pods with it.

cthia wrote:But seriously, reaction thrusters has to remain part of the equation even if tractors are developed to keep them on station because when pods are activated by an enemy and begin to seek, they mustn't be susceptible to collision courses. And at that point tractors are too late.

Please disregard this. I'm entertaining a similar idea about mines and elements from the two notions are bleeding into one. OOPS.