cthia wrote:We don't know for a fact that they are volume intensive, we are simply speculating. Speculative assumptions are just as dangerous as any other.
"They" what? Hyperdrives? We know they are volume intensive.
Spiders? We know they are
area-intensive. We know that because it's been explicitly said that the longer the ship, the faster it can accelerate because it can mount more spider tractors. We don't know what the minimum is that can achieve 150 gravities -- my guess is that the Sharks can do that, so the extra size of the Lenny Det allows it to go as high as 250, plus gives redundancy and more area to mount tubes on. I'm questioning how how fast a Ghost can accelerate, given it's much smaller, but I think there's no way a torpedo can go as high. Numbers to be seen on both cases, though.
At any rate, everyone totally misunderstood my notion. I am not proposing that forts should sneak around anywhere. And I am certainly not proposing that forts should try and give chase to wedges. I am proposing that they don't have to. Forts produced in significant numbers can be brought closer to the planet. There is no reason why a concentric shell of forts can't be emplaced around a planet.* In addition to the WHJ.
I don't see what this argument is good for. You're describing conventional forts.
And, per the paragraph I highlighted. What weapons does a traditional fort have on its hull? Energy weapons? Launch tubes? Well, the MA may not need a plethora of energy batteries on its hull, if a Spider has even a small number of Hellfire 3-Second-Firing Grasers cutting through sidewalls like a hot knife thru butter. At a Spider's or Fort's knife-fighting range.
The 3-second firing graser obliterated the torpedo as a consequence. I doubt any ship- or fort-mounted graser will be able to do that. They may go as high as tens or even a hundred millisecond, though. But that also brings the question of the fire rate of such a thing. It's a lot of energy pumped into the graser during an extended period. Not only does it and its transmission lines have to cool back down, can the power generation aboard the ship or fort sustain that usage?
There's probably an upper limit on how long you want something to fire, given a target. How long does it take a graser to fully penetrate a sidewall? More than this, it's pointless and you're better off firing multiple shots more frequently than fewer and longer. And if you're limited by power generation, I'd rather have more mounts that can fire at multiple points than fewer but longer.
Damn good question! I wondered the same thing about a Spider. Can it crawl away in any direction without having to flip like GA ships? Any garden variety arachnid can certainly move in eerie ways. AND SOME TEND TO HAVE A POWERFUL STINGER!
My guess, given all we know of both spiders and wedges, is that they can only accelerate in one direction, with very rapidly declining capability when offset from that. The spider can probably work in both directions of the same vector, while the wedge we know can't (hence turnovers). We haven't heard about how fast a ship can turn since the Volsung invasion, when Travis managed to target one of the BCs before it completed the "turtling" manoeuvre, but even then it's not completely clear how long that period was.
So far, all my calculations have assumed that the ship can evade at full accel in any direction in 3D.
At any rate, the spider drive on a fort could be even less volume intensive because it isn't as agile. Perhaps it can't reverse course so easily. Who knows. But a fort doesn't need the mobility of a warship and everyone seems to agree on that. So, the spider drive that a fort utilizes may be a whole lot less volume intensive. And, it just may be more stealthy.
The problem is not volume, which we all agree is not a problem for a fort any way. The problem is surface. We know that the spider must mount tractors on the hull. And we know weapon mounts and sensors also need space on the hull. So you still have to make a trade-off between spiders and weapons and sensors. A fort that isn't going to try and run anything down and will be mostly sitting still should dedicate as much as it can to weapons and not to mobility.
What we can't answer is much much surface area is needed to have a minimally-useful spider drive. It may be low-enough that it wouldn't compromise the ability to fight.
But I have to ask you: why bother at all? You still haven't answered why mount spiders on a fort, instead of some other conventional engine. What's the advantage of a spider on a fort before or during battle?
Also, we must consider a wedge/spider hybrid of a fort.
Even a sidewall isn't going to hold up against a three second firing hellstorm at knife-fighting range. You can't maneuver against something you cannot see. And, perhaps the Fort doesn't need launch tubes if it is designed as a pod layer. Shitting pods out of the bottom of the ship.
That sounds like the worst of both worlds. Now you're dedicating volume and area for both impellers and spiders, and yet you can only use one at a time.
I agree no sidewall is going to withstand a 3-second graser burst at knife-fighting range. Whether a fort- or space station-powered bubblewall can, we'll have to find out. I assume it makes some sense to, otherwise, the 6 new stations Manticore is building would be targets again.
The MA are smart, people. They are A L P H A S.
You keep saying that, but that means nothing. Smart people can have blind spots too. In fact, we know they do because David has repeatedly said they live in an echo chamber. And they've clearly recognised they have no one as strategically- and tactically-skilled in military affairs as Honor.
I'd even go as far as saying that so far they haven't demonstrated that their intelligence is much higher than anyone else. They may have the advantage of a much higher concentration of IQ, averages and medians, but it does seem like the outliers elsewhere can match them. Honor being a case in point. And the fact that she may be a lost Alpha line makes it worse, not better: that means other lost Alpha lines and their dominant-inherited genes may be contributing against the alignment.
You'll just have to unstick it! Sorry guys, but the point is moot! The point has been moot ever since forts were given propulsion. In case you failed to realize it, forts already have tactical mobility. Back in the early days of warfare when warships were not as fast as they are now, I imagine that the tactical ability of a fort was significant. It still is significant. Without their mobility, the concentric shell of forts in the MBS couldn't rotate fresh stock. And we have discussed several times about the ability to recall them to the inner system like Rooks.
No one has said they rotate
during battle. They
can't move using impellers during battle, because that means dropping their bubblewalls, which makes them highly vulnerable to attack. The reaction thrusters may be able to slightly reposition them or revolve around an axis if necessary, but they're essentially stuck to a 1000-km radius of where they started.
They rotate and manoeuvre during idle operations. Moving a fort from the inner system to the junction or back is a weeks-long process. That's strategic time, not tactical. And not only would any battle be over by the time the forts managed to arrive (which we made fairly clear during the Rooks discussion), they'd also be useless during most of the transit. I'd go as far as saying any fort caught out of position is dead meat for mobile forces. One fort may be able to outfight its mass, but without close-in support from other forts, ships can overwhelm it. And they can dance in and out of range.
At any rate, the notion isn't to turn forts into warships. The notion is to squeeze every bit of tactical prowess out of a fort that is possible. Turn them into aggressive Rooks, not warships. Forts never see action in any system. The MA may want to change that. And they sure as hell can.
Traditionally, forts could be danced around. Steered clear of. You don't want to emplace forts around planets because you do not want the enemy returning fire so close to ground side. But I'm not sure that will be a consideration for the MA. Any battle in the Darius System will be for all of the marbles. The Alignment might elect to use the planet as political pawns. Heck, I wouldn't be surprised if the MA welcomes a strike on the planet. Then they'll exclaim to the galaxy at large ...
Great idea. But how would they accomplish that?
IINM, only slaves reside on Darius. I got the impression the Inner Onion and possibly the Outer Onion reside elsewhere. Has textev given numbers for the whole of the Onion's population?
Not that I remember. I don't think the inner onion numbers more than a few hundred, at the high end. But the Detweilers quite clearly live on the Darius Gamma surface. They may have a hideout somewhere else in the system, but getting there may be impossible on short notice. We also know that Albrecht's hideout was an island on the surface of Mesa, not somewhere else in the system. He was stuck/trapped on it when Gold Peak arrived in-system.
And for goodness sakes, what is this strategy of aimlessly firing energy weapons and missiles at empty space? You could very well end up hitting something, yes. Like a civilian installation. Civilian installations have to be visible and without stealth?
Yes. Anything under military-grade stealth and not squawking a valid civilian beacon is a valid military target.
Also, what is stopping the MA from seeding the entire inner system with stealthy versions of Shannon's graser platforms. Forged in hell and fatally stealthy. Remember how thick the mines were laid in hell?
Industrial output. Try and calculate just how many those would need to be to make a dent on any sizeable force arriving from an arbitrary angle.
Minefields are only useful if they can be placed somewhere the enemy is expected to go. You can't mine the entire system. To quote Douglas Adams, "Space is big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is."
Who are y'all planning to send on this mission, a bunch of Byngs and Crandalls?
No. Send the Harrington-Alexanders and Tourvilles, Henkes and Theismans, with a sprinkling of Terekhovs. The smart ones who know how to fight and when to get out too.
