When you're a hammer: MAlign blind spots

ZVar wrote:That's why the LD's are seen as eggshells. To be effective they can't be running the impeller. Once they are though, sure they are as tough as any in their weight class.

Someone remind us again why ships don't go above 9 million tonnes. Is it the compensator or is there a limitation of the impeller itself?

The LDs are much above that but they don't use impellers or compensators. We do know they have alpha nodes, so supposedly they could bring up a wedge. But could they move?

ThinksMarkedly wrote:
Someone remind us again why ships don't go above 9 million tonnes. Is it the compensator or is there a limitation of the impeller itself?

The LDs are much above that but they don't use impellers or compensators. We do know they have alpha nodes, so supposedly they could bring up a wedge. But could they move?

It's the compensator.

It's not clear to me. I think it's up to David one way or another.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:

ZVar wrote:That's why the LD's are seen as eggshells. To be effective they can't be running the impeller. Once they are though, sure they are as tough as any in their weight class.

Someone remind us again why ships don't go above 9 million tonnes. Is it the compensator or is there a limitation of the impeller itself?

The LDs are much above that but they don't use impellers or compensators. We do know they have alpha nodes, so supposedly they could bring up a wedge. But could they move?

Beyond the mass limit(which rises over time; ~6.5mt in the 1700s to 9mt in the 1900s), the compensator drag becomes so severe that something goes into the negative(?), it simply doesn't work. At that point, grav plating takes over and is good for up to ~150g.

I don't think the spiderships' alpha nodes can generate an impeller wedge. They're just there to generate warshawski sails for efficient hyperspace and wormhole navigation. Probably in a three-sail configuration instead of the two we're used to.

munroburton wrote:
I don't think the spiderships' alpha nodes can generate an impeller wedge. They're just there to generate warshawski sails for efficient hyperspace and wormhole navigation. Probably in a three-sail configuration instead of the two we're used to.

Even the Alpha nodes is an assumption - we know the spider ships can use wormholes and hyperships, which means sails - but we do not know the mechanism used to create them. Whether the Spider drive can do it, alpha nodes are involved, or a third technology is in place, is unknown. We simply have no details other than "Why would they not be able to do that!"

Theemile wrote:

munroburton wrote:
I don't think the spiderships' alpha nodes can generate an impeller wedge. They're just there to generate warshawski sails for efficient hyperspace and wormhole navigation. Probably in a three-sail configuration instead of the two we're used to.

Even the Alpha nodes is an assumption - we know the spider ships can use wormholes and hyperships, which means sails - but we do not know the mechanism used to create them. Whether the Spider drive can do it, alpha nodes are involved, or a third technology is in place, is unknown. We simply have no details other than "Why would they not be able to do that!"

All textev says that to project a Warshawski-sail you need alpha-nodes, I doubt that the MAlign also have come up with a new way to create sails which means the LD's must also have impeller nodes. The nodes are also needed for navigating in hyperspace since the spider-drive only functions in N-space.

munroburton wrote:I don't think the spiderships' alpha nodes can generate an impeller wedge. They're just there to generate warshawski sails for efficient hyperspace and wormhole navigation. Probably in a three-sail configuration instead of the two we're used to.

RFC made a post here that I'm not able to find that basically said LD's have impeller capability.
Basically it was close to "Only a fool would build a space ship without impeller wedges, and the MAlign aren't fools."

Joat42 wrote:All textev says that to project a Warshawski-sail you need alpha-nodes, I doubt that the MAlign also have come up with a new way to create sails which means the LD's must also have impeller nodes. The nodes are also needed for navigating in hyperspace since the spider-drive only functions in N-space.

Where has it been said the spider does not work in hyper? They work by grabbing the Alpha wall in normal space, and every hyperspace layer has a wall above it, which hypothetically, they could grab onto.

We have been told that spider ship geometry is not that of a impeller vessel. Now it could simply be that they do not have a shape conducive with a speed optimized impeller vessel, and you can still slap a pair of lower powered rings on it, but we have never seen anything in print or mentioned by David that this is true. Occam's razor would lean that way, but unless you have seen something I have missed, we simply do not know if they mount a set of rings or not.

ZVar wrote:

munroburton wrote:I don't think the spiderships' alpha nodes can generate an impeller wedge. They're just there to generate warshawski sails for efficient hyperspace and wormhole navigation. Probably in a three-sail configuration instead of the two we're used to.

RFC made a post here that I'm not able to find that basically said LD's have impeller capability.
Basically it was close to "Only a fool would build a space ship without impeller wedges, and the MAlign aren't fools."

If I remember te post correctly, he said "without the ability to use hyper" not impellers. I could be wrong, though.

munroburton wrote:Beyond the mass limit(which rises over time; ~6.5mt in the 1700s to 9mt in the 1900s), the compensator drag becomes so severe that something goes into the negative(?), it simply doesn't work. At that point, grav plating takes over and is good for up to ~150g.

I don't think the spiderships' alpha nodes can generate an impeller wedge. They're just there to generate warshawski sails for efficient hyperspace and wormhole navigation. Probably in a three-sail configuration instead of the two we're used to.

Or rather, if they have Alpha nodes they're unlikely to be far enough out from the hull to safely initiate a wedge without the start-up grav stresses shredding large parts of the ship.

There are reasons for the precise placement (relative to ship length and beam) you need for impeller nodes - and they seem to largely about not destroying parts of your ship on startup.

Theemile wrote:

ZVar wrote:
RFC made a post here that I'm not able to find that basically said LD's have impeller capability.
Basically it was close to "Only a fool would build a space ship without impeller wedges, and the MAlign aren't fools."

If I remember the post correctly, he said "without the ability to use hyper" not impellers. I could be wrong, though.

I couldn't find the quote yet, but I did find this in RFC's slapdown of Cthia concerning TWTSNBN and the Spider drive.

The grav lance is the ship's impeller wedge which has been focused to generate the gravitic equivalent of an old row galley's ram. It cannot be generated without an impeller wedge and, just to knock this notion on the head one more time, as well, it cannot be generated by a LAC because there's no place to put the generators. So unless your cruiser-sized (or larger) spider drive ship wants to pull up within less than 100,000 km of its target, turn off its spider drive, and power up an impeller wedge (which, among other things, means it has to be equipped with botht he spider and impeller nodes), this is not going to happen.

Bolding mine

That seems to imply that a spider ship "normally" does not carry both sets of hardware. I will agree, not definitive though.