LAC on LAC warfare

Jonathan_S wrote:Without some form of inertia canceling drive (which isn't a thing in the Honorverse) you simply can't change vector in a spacecraft the same way an airplane can. There's no medium to work against to let you redirect your existing momentum; you have to fight against it instead.

I just had a belated flash of the obvious. (Though in my defense I don't recall seeing anyone else post about it either)

Spider drives do have a medium to work against to potentially redirect their heading without losing momentum! Their spider drive nodes are essentially overpowered tractor beams and literally punch through to grab against the Alpha wall itself and pull the ship forward.

In theory, if the mounts and beams can take the strain, a spider drive should be able to grab a spot off to one side and use that as a skyhook style pivot to redirect its existing momentum onto a new heading!

Jonathan_S wrote:

Jonathan_S wrote:Without some form of inertia canceling drive (which isn't a thing in the Honorverse) you simply can't change vector in a spacecraft the same way an airplane can. There's no medium to work against to let you redirect your existing momentum; you have to fight against it instead.

I just had a belated flash of the obvious. (Though in my defense I don't recall seeing anyone else post about it either)

Spider drives do have a medium to work against to potentially redirect their heading without losing momentum! Their spider drive nodes are essentially overpowered tractor beams and literally punch through to grab against the Alpha wall itself and pull the ship forward.

In theory, if the mounts and beams can take the strain, a spider drive should be able to grab a spot off to one side and use that as a skyhook style pivot to redirect its existing momentum onto a new heading!

Jonathan_S wrote:LAC combat isn't really a dogfight like you'd think of jets having. Without some form of inertia canceling drive (which isn't a thing in the Honorverse) you simply can't change vector in a spacecraft the same way an airplane can. There's no medium to work against to let you redirect your existing momentum; you have to fight against it instead.

My point completely. They aren't F-14 Tomcats. There isn't going to be any "Banking left! Banking left!" Unless you're watching your tactical readouts, you may not even know how the other LAC is maneuvering.

But, grabbing a spot on the Alpha Wall, and whiplashing around like the Batmobile did with bathooks? Hot damn! I feel the need, the need for speed. What about the Lenny's ability to use such a tactic to quickly change vectors? "Where did it go?"

At any rate Jonathan, please, kick that notion upstairs!

cthia wrote:But, grabbing a spot on the Alpha Wall, and whiplashing around like the Batmobile did with bathooks? Hot damn! I feel the need, the need for speed. What about the Lenny's ability to use such a tactic to quickly change vectors? "Where did it go?"

At any rate Jonathan, please, kick that notion upstairs!

Since a spider drive has no defense against an energy weapon, even a laser equipped LAC could give it combat damage; therefore getting into a gun fight is not advised. It has no business getting in range of a targeting radar.

Jonathan_S wrote:

Jonathan_S wrote:Without some form of inertia canceling drive (which isn't a thing in the Honorverse) you simply can't change vector in a spacecraft the same way an airplane can. There's no medium to work against to let you redirect your existing momentum; you have to fight against it instead.

I just had a belated flash of the obvious. (Though in my defense I don't recall seeing anyone else post about it either)

Spider drives do have a medium to work against to potentially redirect their heading without losing momentum! Their spider drive nodes are essentially overpowered tractor beams and literally punch through to grab against the Alpha wall itself and pull the ship forward.

In theory, if the mounts and beams can take the strain, a spider drive should be able to grab a spot off to one side and use that as a skyhook style pivot to redirect its existing momentum onto a new heading!

It can also be used to dump speed quickly! To stop on a dime, or a few thousand credits. A dime would probably tear the ship apart.

Jonathan_S wrote:Without some form of inertia canceling drive (which isn't a thing in the Honorverse) you simply can't change vector in a spacecraft the same way an airplane can. There's no medium to work against to let you redirect your existing momentum; you have to fight against it instead.

Jonathan_S wrote:I just had a belated flash of the obvious. (Though in my defense I don't recall seeing anyone else post about it either)

Spider drives do have a medium to work against to potentially redirect their heading without losing momentum! Their spider drive nodes are essentially overpowered tractor beams and literally punch through to grab against the Alpha wall itself and pull the ship forward.

In theory, if the mounts and beams can take the strain, a spider drive should be able to grab a spot off to one side and use that as a skyhook style pivot to redirect its existing momentum onto a new heading!

cthia wrote:It can also be used to dump speed quickly! To stop on a dime, or a few thousand credits. A dime would probably tear the ship apart.

Tearing the ship apart reminds me: can a spider drive ship really perform that maneuver? The maximum acceleration that the ship can accept is limited by the gravity plate's ability to protect the crew, So how much acceleration does that entail? You are taking the speed in one direction to zero in a small amount of time (A = V/T) and adding speed in a direction perpendicular to the initial motion. I am sure the turn is more anemic than you might think at first, since the spider drive cannot make a 90 degree turn as fast as a wedge drive ship can.

tlb wrote:

Jonathan_S wrote:Without some form of inertia canceling drive (which isn't a thing in the Honorverse) you simply can't change vector in a spacecraft the same way an airplane can. There's no medium to work against to let you redirect your existing momentum; you have to fight against it instead.

Jonathan_S wrote:I just had a belated flash of the obvious. (Though in my defense I don't recall seeing anyone else post about it either)

Spider drives do have a medium to work against to potentially redirect their heading without losing momentum! Their spider drive nodes are essentially overpowered tractor beams and literally punch through to grab against the Alpha wall itself and pull the ship forward.

In theory, if the mounts and beams can take the strain, a spider drive should be able to grab a spot off to one side and use that as a skyhook style pivot to redirect its existing momentum onto a new heading!

cthia wrote:It can also be used to dump speed quickly! To stop on a dime, or a few thousand credits. A dime would probably tear the ship apart.

Tearing the ship apart reminds me: can a spider drive ship really perform that maneuver? The maximum acceleration that the ship can accept is limited by the gravity plate's ability to protect the crew, So how much acceleration does that entail? You are taking the speed in one direction to zero in a small amount of time (A = V/T) and adding speed in a direction perpendicular to the initial motion. I am sure the turn is more anemic than you might think at first, since the spider drive cannot make a 90 degree turn as fast as a wedge drive ship can.

It would also be used to reverse directions. Would a compensator come into play? Why not use the method to increase speed by continuously grabbing ahead of the ship.

Jonathan_S wrote:Spider drives do have a medium to work against to potentially redirect their heading without losing momentum! Their spider drive nodes are essentially overpowered tractor beams and literally punch through to grab against the Alpha wall itself and pull the ship forward.

In theory, if the mounts and beams can take the strain, a spider drive should be able to grab a spot off to one side and use that as a skyhook style pivot to redirect its existing momentum onto a new heading!

I don't think that's at all how it works.

So far we haven't heard anything about the spider drive's acceleration being related to the ship's speed in real space. That means the medium the drive is pushing or pulling against is, like light, at a constant speed relative to the ship. Speeding up to 0.8c doesn't make light travel at only 60000 km/s to you, it's still at the speed of light. So the alpha wall is probably too.

What's more, unlike a jet, the spider drive has only one way to interact with the medium and that's the spider itself. A jet accelerates with the turbofans (and afterburners and whatever) using good, old Newton's Third Law, but changes direction using its surfaces.

Finally, even if it had a way of dumping all its velocity and turning, it would be limited by how much the grav plates can compensate. A fighter pilot feels a lot of G forces always during turns because their velocity vector is changing direction, but not very much magnitude.

In other words, the spider drive is not very different from a wedge: it allows for violating Newton's Third Law and Conservation of Momentum (and whether energy is conserved is anyone's guess), but not Newton's First and Second.

tlb wrote:SNIP I am sure the turn is more anemic than you might think at first, since the spider drive cannot make a 90 degree turn as fast as a wedge drive ship can.

this raises something I don't remember being stated

exactly how long does it take to do a 360deg turn
[for LAC]
[for Super Dreadnought]

obviously also this must[?] be different for the different axes, so do we know what the comparison is for rotating round the long axis of a ship [quicker] as opposed to rotating round a short axis [slower I guess]

isaac_newton wrote:

tlb wrote:SNIP I am sure the turn is more anemic than you might think at first, since the spider drive cannot make a 90 degree turn as fast as a wedge drive ship can.

this raises something I don't remember being stated

exactly how long does it take to do a 360deg turn
[for LAC]
[for Super Dreadnought]

obviously also this must[?] be different for the different axes, so do we know what the comparison is for rotating round the long axis of a ship [quicker] as opposed to rotating round a short axis [slower I guess]

It'd take the better part of a hour to somersault a superdreadnought.

https://infodump.thefifthimperium.com/e ... ton/128/1/

A typical SKM DD can alter her heading (but not necessarily her vector, of course) by 90 degrees in about 100 seconds; an SD would need about twelve minutes for a 90-degree turn. (The difference in roll rates is not as a great, although it also favors the smaller ship by a largish margin.

But I'm not sure if the spider ships need make 90 degree turns at all. If their drives can grab and push in and from any directions, then they don't need to rotate in the same way that impeller warships have to.

cthia wrote:It would also be used to reverse directions. Would a compensator come into play? Why not use the method to increase speed by continuously grabbing ahead of the ship.

In normal space, a compensator CANNOT be used without a wedge; whereas safe travel in hyperspace requires sails, which permit the use of a compensator (unless the mass limit is exceeded).

Increasing or decreasing speed is precisely the result of acceleration, which is what the spider drive creates. Turning is a combination of decreasing speed on one axis, while increasing it on another.