?

What do we actualy know about the LDs?
1) they are big, massivly big.
2) they use spider drive and, if you saw one it would not look like anything presently operating in the Honorverse we have heard of primarily because of the configuartion of the spider drive.
3) they are being built to be able to TUBE LAUNCH Graser Torpedos.
4) they are capable of using a wormhole. Just how without the standard sail is not fully described.
5) They are going to be at least as stealthy as the Sharks.

Now the probably stuff:
a) They probably use the adaptive camaflage of the Ghosts which repeat on their skin what is on the other side of the ship.
b) They probably include some component of a Podnaught in that the majority of the Alignment weapons used in Oyster Bay were ballistic delivery systems carrying the weapons deep into the systems before hitting the targets.
c) They probably can do the same kind of targeting scouting that the Ghosts can but they would need to lurk longer and probably from further away.
d) They apparently are not designed for a stand up (or even a running away) fight with anything. They depend on stealth (with the spider drive etc).

Do they have any defenceive weaponry beyond stealthe and spider drive. Probably, but that would be more ECM and really good sensors. It has sounded like if they got into a positon where they needed CMs and defensive energy weapons the are already probably about to be dead meat.

Somehow I don't see them being configured to become a Porcupine if discovered. That would be bristling up your coat of quills and try to keep that really dangerous tail in the direction of an attacker. They move (relatively) slowly.
Other offensive weapons have NOT been discussed. Anything other than whatever they are delivering either ballistically or the GTs -unless there are some other spider drive weapons we have not been told about- would be very very harmful to use. Anything that would use a wedge is going to draw sensor notice like sending up flairs and essentialy broadcast a launch (or at least an ignition) location.

So, we just have to wait till we see one of the used.

There is some more info about what Simões says, but I don't remember which book - perhaps one of the side-series with Victor & co, where he relates to having conversations with other scientists working on the spider-drive since there are some overlap between the spider-drive and the streak-drive, both deal with the hyper-bands.

tlb wrote:As an aside, do the books say that there actually is a compensator on a spider ship for hyperspace use? Since grav-plates would also work there.

Yes, but why gimp the ship even more to be the slowest hyper-capable ship in space? Accelerating up to the hyper-wall or a hyper-band would be an interesting exercise in wasting time.

Further, a spider-ship with no compensator would be so much space-dust the first moment it's discovered; in real-space and in hyper-space.

Joat42 wrote:Yes, but why gimp the ship even more to be the slowest hyper-capable ship in space? Accelerating up to the hyper-wall or a hyper-band would be an interesting exercise in wasting time.

Further, a spider-ship with no compensator would be so much space-dust the first moment it's discovered; in real-space and in hyper-space.

We know the spider-driven ships have triangular-section bodies so they can have the spider emitters, but can't they have hammerheads too for node rings for a sail in hyperspace?

And what limits the size of conventional ships? Isn't it the compensator field too? So a 12 MT ship won't have good compensation even with the nodes and sails. Actually, without good compensation, can it enter a grav wave, which has thousands of gravities of shear?

Joat42 wrote:The spider-ships do have nodes and compensators, without them they can't jump to/from hyper - but they can't be used for what the ships where designed for: Stealth and surprise attacks.

Bit of a correction. No ship needs nodes or compensators to jump into hyper. Scout ships used hyper before either of those technologies were invented (and more dangerously before the warshaski detector was invented that could see grav waves).

The only thing absolutely needed to get into hyper is the use of a hyper generator.

What you use alpha nodes for is entering a grav wave or just as you transit a wormhole. But while grav waves are the most highly traveled parts of hyper the majority of hyper is rifts between the waves - and you don't need nodes to travel there. Even reaction thrusters would work fine (for as long as you had fuel)

And you don't need compensators at all. Without one your acceleration would be quite low by starship standards, no more than 50 gees (unless you've got the MAlign's super gra plates, in which case 150 gees). But if you keep to that low acceleration you should even be able to sail grav waves without a compensator. (You lose the acceleration advantage of doing so, but sails would still give you free energy)

But on a strategic transit the lower accleration doesn't hurt as much as you might think because the ships spend more of their time cruising at their top speed. And that's limited by rad shielding, not accleration. Even at a leisurely 100 gees it only takes a little over 2 days to work up to 0.6c (max speed in hyper). (Assuming that for sanity of the writer that all ships involved have the same kind of relativity defying properties as wedge driven designs seem to)

Joat42 wrote:There is some more info about what Simões says, but I don't remember which book - perhaps one of the side-series with Victor & co, where he relates to having conversations with other scientists working on the spider-drive since there are some overlap between the spider-drive and the streak-drive, both deal with the hyper-bands.

tlb wrote:As an aside, do the books say that there actually is a compensator on a spider ship for hyperspace use? Since grav-plates would also work there.

Yes, but why gimp the ship even more to be the slowest hyper-capable ship in space? Accelerating up to the hyper-wall or a hyper-band would be an interesting exercise in wasting time.

Further, a spider-ship with no compensator would be so much space-dust the first moment it's discovered; in real-space and in hyper-space.

If you would, please find the section in the books that you remember. In chapter 11 of ART the leaders of the GA are lamenting that he did not know more about the spider drive. My memory is that his group had no contact with the spider drive group; but perhaps the place to look is where the Detweilers realize he defected, because they might discuss what knowledge he has.

The spider drive and the streak drive are two totally separate things: the spider drive uses powerful tractor beams to grab the hyper wall and pull the ship through space; while streak "drive" is an overpowered hyper generator (so not really a drive) that permits accessing higher hyper bands than can normally be used.

The compensator's function is to counteract the action of acceleration on the interior of the ship so that people can survive. It has a rapid fall off at higher masses, so that a fort probably has to use grav plates instead. However artificial gravity has a much lower acceleration limit than a compensator, whitch limits its usefulness.

From the author's descriptions, grav plates would be adequate for the lower acceleration afforded by the spider drive. The LD might be too big to even consider a conpensator.

Who do you believe is "gimping" the spider drive and what do you mean by that? A spider drive ship's only defense against energy weapons is stealth; because it does not have a wedge nor side walls, not because it may not have a compensator.

Jonathan_S wrote:(Assuming that for sanity of the writer that all ships involved have the same kind of relativity defying properties as wedge driven designs seem to)

Normal ships don't have relativity-defying properties. The passengers aboard a ship experience time dilation just like Special Relativity predicts, measured against the speed of light in the hyper band. This was shown in the books where passengers aboard a ship experience a shorter period during long trips than the outside universe measured (21.6 instead of 27 days, @ 0.6c).

If you meant the long period of acceleration and deceleratiton, during which the Lorentz factor is slowly changing, then yeah, I agree. Of course, people can just round the numbers in speech too. Or they can be wrong too.

tlb wrote:If you would, please find the section in the books that you remember. In chapter 11 of ART the leaders of the GA are lamenting that he did not know more about the spider drive. My memory is that his group had no contact with the spider drive group; but perhaps the place to look is where the Detweilers realize he defected, because they might discuss what knowledge he has.

They do and they say that Simões did not have a lot of knowledge of the spider drive.

To the best of their knowledge. It's possible that Simões did talk to some other scientists and violated some OpSec. He wouldn't have all the formulae, but he might know something. Particularly what the spider drive isn't.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:We know the spider-driven ships have triangular-section bodies so they can have the spider emitters, but can't they have hammerheads too for node rings for a sail in hyperspace?

And what limits the size of conventional ships? Isn't it the compensator field too? So a 12 MT ship won't have good compensation even with the nodes and sails. Actually, without good compensation, can it enter a grav wave, which has thousands of gravities of shear?

There's nothing saying a ship HAS to be shaped like a conventional impeller ship to use impeller nodes - that's the most efficient shape but it's not an absolute. Pinnaces have wings along with a wedge, for example, and the Taylor FSV's have huge cargo pods on their dorsal ridge that significantly change the ship's lines.

Nor do most impeller ships have hammerheads at all. Most warships do, of course, but that has more to do with having places to mount chase armament and sensors rather than the need to have a hammer head for any drive-related purpose. In fact, the hammer head is a design compromise resulting from how the nodes have to be placed relative to the end and maximum beam of the ship; the ship needs to neck down at the ends for the nodes, then flare back out for weapon placement. Civilian ships have little or no hammer head at all, the ship necks down for the nodes and then tapers off to a blunt end. There's an illustration of the Trojan class Q ships in HoS that shows a more typical civilian hull form. A spider ship could easily be shaped like a civilian ship with the part between the node rings being triangular rather than roughly cylindrical.

We know that spider ships are hyper capable in some way. The Sharks for Oyster Bay arrived and presumably left under their own power, and the Ghosts presumably left under their own power as well. Having to schedule a pick up by a freighter in the beehive they'd just kicked open would have been a complicated form of suicide.

Even if they can't use a wedge to accelerate normally in hyperspace (and we have reason to believe they have Alpha nodes but not the Beta nodes to make a full ring), they'll almost certainly have Streak drives so that they can make the whole trip home faster and with almost no risk of being intercepted. No one else can even get into the iota or kappa bands to chase them down.

Jonathan_S wrote:Bit of a correction. No ship needs nodes or compensators to jump into hyper. Scout ships used hyper before either of those technologies were invented (and more dangerously before the warshaski detector was invented that could see grav waves).

You are entirely correct. I conflated the two.

Jonathan_S wrote:And you don't need compensators at all. Without one your acceleration would be quite low by starship standards, no more than 50 gees (unless you've got the MAlign's super gra plates, in which case 150 gees). But if you keep to that low acceleration you should even be able to sail grav waves without a compensator. (You lose the acceleration advantage of doing so, but sails would still give you free energy)

Don't you need nodes to project the sails? Which implies you also can project a wedge, which means you probably also have installed a compensator anyway - because why not?

Jonathan_S wrote:But on a strategic transit the lower accleration doesn't hurt as much as you might think because the ships spend more of their time cruising at their top speed. And that's limited by rad shielding, not accleration. Even at a leisurely 100 gees it only takes a little over 2 days to work up to 0.6c (max speed in hyper). (Assuming that for sanity of the writer that all ships involved have the same kind of relativity defying properties as wedge driven designs seem to)

The point is that a warship with such a low acceleration can't survive very long in a battle. A spider-ship is only effective when it's not detected, but as soon as it's located it'll soon be just debris drifting through space - which is why I find it preposterous that they would design a warship without a wedge and a compensator which certainly will be needed during active operations.

MAlign doesn't strike me as bunch of idiots although they have their blind spots.

Consider the implications in what situations you can use the LD's and how it would work logistically:

1. Their intended use is for softening targets up before an attack of traditional ships.
2. Their intended use is for supporting an attack with traditional ships.
3. Their intended use is for stealthy hit and runs.

We can all agree on that the LD's isn't something you take into a conventional battle, especially if they lack wedges and compensators.

If we go with the first use, the LD's operate independently from the rest of the fleet. They go in, launch their missiles and leave. A little bit like submarine warfare in WWII, but that also means that once detected their survivability drops significantly and when the GA comes up with a working detector it'll be a slaughter.

If we go with the second use, the whole fleet train would be extremely slow due to the LD's poor acceleration plus the LD's would be relegated to the role of shoot and scoot - somewhat like mobile artillery supporting traditional units.

If we go with the third use, that works best against fixed targets. I can also see it used to ambush mobile forces passing through systems, but that's a bit more iffy.

All 3 uses above is a lot less effective if the LD's is stuck at 150 gees with no wedges, sidewalls and high-g maneuvering - plus their survivability becomes a lot lower. Just consider the situation where a spider-ship is detected, there's no need to send missiles after it - just fire your grasers at it.

I may be wrong, but that only means that rfc has cooked up some extraordinary handwavium to make the spider-ships work in a practical way that's sustainable - as it stands right now they are essentially just one-trick ponies.

Joat42 wrote:Don't you need nodes to project the sails? Which implies you also can project a wedge, which means you probably also have installed a compensator anyway - because why not?

The point is that a warship with such a low acceleration can't survive very long in a battle. A spider-ship is only effective when it's not detected, but as soon as it's located it'll soon be just debris drifting through space - which is why I find it preposterous that they would design a warship without a wedge and a compensator which certainly will be needed during active operations.

You are confusing things; there are two separate types of nodes: the Beta nodes are used to project the wedge (and sidewalls?), while the Alpha nodes project the sails for use in hyperspace. To have the two sails to take best advantage of hyperspace you need two Alpha rigs, one at the bow and the other at the stern. Unlike the Beta nodes, they do not impose any other shape requirement on the hull.

You are totally correct about the disadvantages imposed by the lack of Beta nodes; the Malign has designed a ship whose only advantage is stealth; which is why it is being compared to a WW2 submarine.