?

ThinksMarkedly wrote:

Jonathan_S wrote:But maybe you can fix that. Rather than using expendable large GTs you could build an anti-commerce weapon that was a bit larger than a GT but mostly reusable. Offhand, I'm thinking a spider powered minelaying drone. Direct itout into the path of a freighter of convoy, drop a few laserhead mines and trundle back to the commerce raider. The large stealthy bit is reusable so you don't need to carry many and the expendable bits are far smaller so the ship can carry a bunch of them. (And use a drone because, slow as the GTs are, at "a few hundred gravities" they're faster than a manned spider ship; so have a better chance of achieving an intercept vector than the commerce raiding ship. And for a reusable one you might be willing to make it a bit larget letting you cram some more spider emitters on - allowing a higher accel. Plus you don't risk the ship getting so close)

I'd go the other way around. Any weapon carried on a spider must destroy itself after firing. The MAlign can't afford to have its technology fall into the hands of the GA. And as soon as the torpedo fires, in any moderately-sized system where there's a worthy convoy to be struck, the system will go into high alert. The other warships in the system will begin a cat-and-mouse game to trap the ship that deployed the torpedo, so that ship had better be high-tailing out of the system.

We also haven't heard of weapons that can fire multiple times, aside from PDLCs which are nowhere near as powerful (though they may be sufficiently lethal to freighters). Given the energies involved, betting on the platform being usable after a use is reckless. It may suffer malfunctions.

The problem of building smaller is that this severely limits the spider. A weapon that can accelerate no more than 50 gravities is not very useful unless the freighters are coming directly to it.

You'll note my proposal didn't call for a reusable weapon. It was for a reusable deployment system.

One that could drop a few conventional laserhead mines in the path of a target. The mines expend themselves but by that point the deployment system is heading back to the raider where it can be reloaded (or possibly first refurbished) with more mines for the next target/attack. And really no risk the secret spider parts might be recoverable because they're not even near where the weapon goes off.

And I even said it might be larger than a GT (not smaller). If you only need to carry a few reusuable drones it's not as hard to find space for them than if you need to carry as many fully expendable systems as possible.

Sharks were described as test beds for the Lenny Det class and using Its.

Sure, you could drop one off, have it linger near a place you wanted to start doing commerce disruption but at the same time you might want to set up to use those Gas to cut up local orbital infrastructure. So you, along with using a RD to develope the orbital information for your orbital targets and then seed a couple of weapons into the "normal" approch vector for the system for commerical transports. Remember, that is in constant shift relative to the star and the "best" place to come out of hyper for economical transit to planetary orbit- not like setting a mine in a chanel. Do you use some passive sensor on the GT and have it hit the next ship that comes ithing it's projected ability to intercept and destroy? Since it should be prelocated to be between a ship and it's approch path to orbit. A GT that can chew up a major space station should have no trouble (in the limited burn time the grazer has) effectivly slice and dice a normal foreigner. Heck, a BC comming in unaware is going to be shredded. Survivors? Probably almost none on a freighter, particulraly if the grazer disrupts the containment of the power plant. Same thing with a BC. If a warship gets sliced apart there may be some survivors but, again, if the powerplant looses containment, it's just gone. And the GT is going to self destruct when it hits the end of it's effective power for the grazer. So big explosion, "weapons" fire, and no ship with possibly very little debris- which are out near the hyperlimit.

By the time someone gets out there from a planitary orbit, the Shark-even if it had still been there when then the GT fired- is going to be creeping away.

If your going to use these things in a terror campaign, with a planitary system or alliance as the target, you can just go with unrestricted warfare and kill any target of oppertunity comming into the desired system. That was essentily why- in both World Wars- the Germans went to unrestricted warfare.
Submarines are NOT well suited to getting close to check out the papers of potental targets.There is the other problem that, unlike surface raiders, submarines have no capasity to take off passengers and crew of thier targets. The best they can do is demand the ship stop (which typicaly means that they have to surface and open communcation by radio and/or voice) and if you pick the wrong target you have an ememy surface raider or Q ship which promptly tries to put a few artillery shells into the sub's pressure hull.
So, quite rapidly, they went to "sink them all". The Sharks have exactly the same problem. They would have to make themselves known to the target to try and identify who they were and which side of the war they would be on. And as far as taking people off- where the hell are they going to 1st put them on board for that extended cruise and do you really think they are going to drop them off where they can report things like what a Shark looks line inside and out? Or take them to Darius-----not a chance. So, ambush hunter, and in this case just kill the ship and stay as far away from it as possible.]

Brigade XO wrote:Sharks were described as test beds for the Lenny Det class and using Its.

Sure, you could drop one off, have it linger near a place you wanted to start doing commerce disruption but at the same time you might want to set up to use those Gas to cut up local orbital infrastructure. So you, along with using a RD to develope the orbital information for your orbital targets and then seed a couple of weapons into the "normal" approch vector for the system for commerical transports. Remember, that is in constant shift relative to the star and the "best" place to come out of hyper for economical transit to planetary orbit- not like setting a mine in a chanel. Do you use some passive sensor on the GT and have it hit the next ship that comes ithing it's projected ability to intercept and destroy? Since it should be prelocated to be between a ship and it's approch path to orbit. A GT that can chew up a major space station should have no trouble (in the limited burn time the grazer has) effectivly slice and dice a normal foreigner. Heck, a BC comming in unaware is going to be shredded. Survivors? Probably almost none on a freighter, particulraly if the grazer disrupts the containment of the power plant. Same thing with a BC. If a warship gets sliced apart there may be some survivors but, again, if the powerplant looses containment, it's just gone. And the GT is going to self destruct when it hits the end of it's effective power for the grazer. So big explosion, "weapons" fire, and no ship with possibly very little debris- which are out near the hyperlimit.

By the time someone gets out there from a planitary orbit, the Shark-even if it had still been there when then the GT fired- is going to be creeping away.

If your going to use these things in a terror campaign, with a planitary system or alliance as the target, you can just go with unrestricted warfare and kill any target of oppertunity comming into the desired system. That was essentily why- in both World Wars- the Germans went to unrestricted warfare.
Submarines are NOT well suited to getting close to check out the papers of potental targets.There is the other problem that, unlike surface raiders, submarines have no capasity to take off passengers and crew of thier targets. The best they can do is demand the ship stop (which typicaly means that they have to surface and open communcation by radio and/or voice) and if you pick the wrong target you have an ememy surface raider or Q ship which promptly tries to put a few artillery shells into the sub's pressure hull.
So, quite rapidly, they went to "sink them all". The Sharks have exactly the same problem. They would have to make themselves known to the target to try and identify who they were and which side of the war they would be on. And as far as taking people off- where the hell are they going to 1st put them on board for that extended cruise and do you really think they are going to drop them off where they can report things like what a Shark looks line inside and out? Or take them to Darius-----not a chance. So, ambush hunter, and in this case just kill the ship and stay as far away from it as possible.]

Not really.

You are intercepting them inside a hostile system. You can intercept the traffic to the system command. You can read their transponders. You can determine what nodes and electronics they have installed and determine things based on that combination. Like if someone says they are from neutral planet 2 and yet are running nodes made by hostile world and using a hostile world radar and radio. hmm.

It’s not “I see some black smoke on the horizon.” You can track them from when they enter the system until the disappear at exit, and all the time you know who they say they are, who they are talking to and whether that matches the ESM profile of the vessel.

Someone asked to what end would there be a commerce raiding strategy by the MA? It would accomplish the same result as any other navy would seek. Disperse the enemy's forces, and enable them to be defeated in detail. Deny supplies and information. In the MA's case, if they cause a ruckus in some system or quadrant, they can count on the time-honored tradition of the RMN's responses. And they can lay in wait for those responses to arrive in-system.

cthia wrote:Someone asked to what end would there be a commerce raiding strategy by the MA? It would accomplish the same result as any other navy would seek. Disperse the enemy's forces, and enable them to be defeated in detail. Deny supplies and information. In the MA's case, if they cause a ruckus in some system or quadrant, they can count on the time-honored tradition of the RMN's responses. And they can lay in wait for those responses to arrive in-system.

The question is not about the benefit of commerce raiding. The question is about doing that using Sharks, BB- or DN-sized ships that move only as fast as their preys.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:

cthia wrote:Someone asked to what end would there be a commerce raiding strategy by the MA? It would accomplish the same result as any other navy would seek. Disperse the enemy's forces, and enable them to be defeated in detail. Deny supplies and information. In the MA's case, if they cause a ruckus in some system or quadrant, they can count on the time-honored tradition of the RMN's responses. And they can lay in wait for those responses to arrive in-system.

The question is not about the benefit of commerce raiding. The question is about doing that using Sharks, BB- or DN-sized ships that move only as fast as their preys.

In conjunction with any Lenny's that may also be there to pay off any debts, along with any other quite inevitable tum te tums. These are Alphas. Not Solarians. Besides, surprise is its own form of tech.

Especially since many of you are arguing upstream that freighters should use well traveled lanes without changing up their daily habits. (Or was that in the other thread.)

I'm still keen on these things being dropped off by freighters. I'm also wondering if they can be towed. Along with any author induced tums, I asked waaay upstream whether the spider drive can be active while in the freighters cargo hold. If so, then it can also be active while being towed. It can also be active while strapped to the hull of the freighter.

cthia wrote:I'm still keen on these things being dropped off by freighters. I'm also wondering if they can be towed. Along with any author induced tums, I asked waaay upstream whether the spider drive can be active while in the freighters cargo hold. If so, then it can also be active while being towed. It can also be active while strapped to the hull of the freighter.

Why do you think the spider drive should be active while it is being carried in some form? We know that there is a startup signature, but it is faint and not easily recognized. If it were possible, then maybe do the startup just before being released (perhaps while still in hyperspace)?

tlb wrote:

cthia wrote:I'm still keen on these things being dropped off by freighters. I'm also wondering if they can be towed. Along with any author induced tums, I asked waaay upstream whether the spider drive can be active while in the freighters cargo hold. If so, then it can also be active while being towed. It can also be active while strapped to the hull of the freighter.

Why do you think the spider drive should be active while it is being carried in some form? We know that there is a startup signature, but it is faint and not easily recognized. If it were possible, then maybe do the startup just before being released (perhaps while still in hyperspace)?

You just answered your question for me. To help mitigate any chance of detection, in case the freighter comes too close to something for comfort. If her drive CAN be enabled while carried, then initiating the drive while still in hyper becomes ideal.

Aside: My area was hit hard by Isaias. Sweet Figure Eight Island isn't so innocent any more. My poor brother faced a total of ten confirmed tornadoes which touched down in his area. One of his lieutenants rang him and said "Chief, one is coming right for your home." Luckily, it missed him.

cthia wrote:I'm still keen on these things being dropped off by freighters. I'm also wondering if they can be towed. Along with any author induced tums, I asked waaay upstream whether the spider drive can be active while in the freighters cargo hold. If so, then it can also be active while being towed. It can also be active while strapped to the hull of the freighter.

tlb wrote:Why do you think the spider drive should be active while it is being carried in some form? We know that there is a startup signature, but it is faint and not easily recognized. If it were possible, then maybe do the startup just before being released (perhaps while still in hyperspace)?

cthia wrote:You just answered your question for me. To help mitigate any chance of detection, in case the freighter comes too close to something for comfort. If her drive CAN be enabled while carried, then initiating the drive while still in hyper becomes ideal.

It was not clear whether you wanted the spider drive to always be on (which seemed like a waste of fuel). It is unlikely that the drive would be started while still strapped to a freighter, better to wait until it was free, but still within the wedge.

cthia wrote:Along with any author induced tums, I asked waaay upstream whether the spider drive can be active while in the freighters cargo hold. If so, then it can also be active while being towed. It can also be active while strapped to the hull of the freighter.

We just don't know. I'd think it depends on whether the drive can be active without actually projecting any over the, essentially, overpower tractor beams.

You certainly couldn't project those while within a hold, as they're powerful enough to nearly constitute a short range weapon; they'd tear the surrounding freighter apart.

Though it probably says something that the ships sneaking through the Grayson and Manticoran systems apparently felt it was safer to coast with their drives down (even with the risk of the start-up signature if they did have to fire it up to maneuver away from someone) that it was to keep the drive online the whole time.



Now drive beams out wouldn't hit a ship towing a spider ship. But, on the other hand, there could be issues trying to tow the spider ship faster than it's natural top speed; because those beams do anchor it to the hyper wall. If the drive can't handle adjusting quickly enough to keep up with the higher acceleration of the freighter then it'd probably damage things trying to be towed that quickly. (Though I don't know if the freighter's compensation field could cover the spider ship; so this might be moot as it may be limited to the low accelerations the towed spider's grav plates make survivable)

Also a freighter trying to tow a several mega-ton ship would be enormously more obvious on grav sensor that the momentary start-up effect of a spider drive. The freighter's wedge (easily visible, FTL, to any grav sensor) would be showing far, far, too much power usage for the observed acceleration. (Just like you can detect warship's towing pods outside their wedge by that same effect).

The combo of very high wedge power and very low acceleration is going to almost instantly attract attention to that freighter. Pretty counter-productive to sneaking a commerce raider into the system. (And all to hide a signature that's barely detectable even if you're almost on top of the spider ship when it activates its drive)