Attacking Darius:

Jonathan_S wrote:

cthia wrote:This gives me an opportunity to enquire about the method conventional ships use to maneuver. How exactly does a wedge and impeller ship maneuver? Forward and backward is obvious, but how does a ship accomplish the "slowly crabbing off base course" that storyline loves to tell? What exactly moves that alters the vector?

I don't think we know. The books are pretty clear that the wedge can be used to, somehow produce asymmetric forces that allow ships to turn, pitch, and roll -- but to the best of my recollection they're totally silent on exactly how that is done.


Though we do know, at least for Shrikes, that the wedge allows them to maneuver more quickly than their reaction thrusters "Reaction thrusters flared, pushing LAC Wing One's bows sideways with old-fashioned brute power. It was slow and ponderous compared to maneuvering on impellers" [EoH]

Well it was and remains just as confusing to me as the first read through. Traditionally, propellers are the more modern wet navy equivalent. Every kid that has driven a boat with an outboard motor revels in his expertise. You control the angle of the propeller to give propulsion and control. Impellers are a more modern form of that as far as I know.

So in the HV, I thought the angle of the impellers is what changed the vector. And I thought the wedge was somehow powering the impellers.

And I still have a hard time accepting that thrusters can apply enough brute force to alter the course of something so large and accelerating so hard.

tlb wrote:I hope that you know that her thrusters were very visible at Hades; the Peep force was just not looking for them. Not a mistake that a recon drone would make.

That's what I would have expected, but wasn't. Those drive plumes should have been visible clear across the system from a light-hour away. There shouldn't have been a way for the sensors on any ship to fail to detect them at all, much less when they closed to a few light-seconds.

And yet they weren't.

Moreover, those were full 50-gravity burns from the thrusters, not small manoeuvring jets for positioning. This tells me that jets could be sufficiently hidden.

cthia wrote:That scene is exactly what I was referring to. However, Honor attacked with the sun at her back so she would have a bit of an advantage. I suppose that would be called "The shoot out at the OK Coral" maneuver. 'Ouch!'

Pretty sure it's the other way around. The sun wouldn't have blinded the sensors, it would have illuminated the gas plume by going through it. Like you can see a laser when it goes through fog or smoke, and how you can see the fog and smoke in daylight or when another car headlights illuminate it.

The reflection from a gas plume coming back towards the inner system is much fainter. It's possible, for sure. We can see that on Earth from inside the atmosphere on the solar system dust reflected back, called the Zodiacal Lights.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:

cthia wrote:That scene is exactly what I was referring to. However, Honor attacked with the sun at her back so she would have a bit of an advantage. I suppose that would be called "The shoot out at the OK Coral" maneuver. 'Ouch!'

Pretty sure it's the other way around. The sun wouldn't have blinded the sensors, it would have illuminated the gas plume by going through it. Like you can see a laser when it goes through fog or smoke, and how you can see the fog and smoke in daylight or when another car headlights illuminate it.

The reflection from a gas plume coming back towards the inner system is much fainter. It's possible, for sure. We can see that on Earth from inside the atmosphere on the solar system dust reflected back, called the Zodiacal Lights.

You're probably right no doubt. I simply remember her using the sun as an advantage. And in a shootout it would be at her back, like in the duel. My badd.

But about that long burn. That is why I said the Spider can't use thrusters, because I imagine it would take as much burn time to alter the course of something as large as a Fort as Honor had to use. And Honor was moving ballistically with no accel. Of course, Honor had more than one ship as well. But still.

cthia wrote:And I still have a hard time accepting that thrusters can apply enough brute force to alter the course of something so large and accelerating so hard.

You and me both. The inertia on those ships is huge, so thrusters are going to be minimal at best. And yet we know they were enough to push Honor's forces at 50 gravities through the Cerberus System.

The problem is that this is Rocket Science and that's pretty well-known. Just apply the Tsiolkovsky Equation.

Therefore, the only conclusion possible is that there's something about Physics, maybe connected to the impellers (which may have been hot but not creating a wedge) or more likely the grav plating (which was active and allowing the crew to feel no more than 1 G), that we don't understand and thus allow the ships in the HV to cancel some of their inertia. If such a Clarketech is possible, then you can use rockets.

If Star Trek can have Inertial Dampeners, why not the HV?

Of course, therein lie perpetual motion machines again.

cthia wrote:But about that long burn. That is why I said the Spider can't use thrusters, because I imagine it would take as much burn time to alter the course of something as large as a Fort as Honor had to use. And Honor was moving ballistically with no accel. Of course, Honor had more than one ship as well. But still.

True, but do note it applies to the spiders too. They can produce only 3x more acceleration than Honor's forces. That means their turns may take 3x less time than hers would, but it's still far more than any impeller driven ship, especially the GA ones.

That's why I keep saying that spider ships generating intercepts with manoeuvring and evading impeller ships becomes a statistical game. You must have enough torpedoes in play so that you can guarantee or nearly guarantee the intercept. But the more you add, the more you increase the chance of random detection because, likewise, it's a statistical game.

Or you must rely on the other commander's mistakes, which is never a sign of good planning.

I'm not talking about an environment where the impeller ships have to be at a given volume, so they wouldn't be free to manoeuvre.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:

cthia wrote:And I still have a hard time accepting that thrusters can apply enough brute force to alter the course of something so large and accelerating so hard.

You and me both. The inertia on those ships is huge, so thrusters are going to be minimal at best. And yet we know they were enough to push Honor's forces at 50 gravities through the Cerberus System.

The problem is that this is Rocket Science and that's pretty well-known. Just apply the Tsiolkovsky Equation.

Therefore, the only conclusion possible is that there's something about Physics, maybe connected to the impellers (which may have been hot but not creating a wedge) or more likely the grav plating (which was active and allowing the crew to feel no more than 1 G), that we don't understand and thus allow the ships in the HV to cancel some of their inertia. If such a Clarketech is possible, then you can use rockets.

If Star Trek can have Inertial Dampeners, why not the HV?

Of course, therein lie perpetual motion machines again.

The book said the Grav plates damped the internal inertia down to 5 gs so it was survivable with skinsuits and grav couches.

Theemile wrote:The book said the Grav plates damped the internal inertia down to 5 gs so it was survivable with skinsuits and grav couches.

Thanks for the correction.

But any technology that manages to reduce it by more than 0 is, as far as our Physics can tell, impossible. So if such thing exists, it could therefore have applications that we can't predict either.

cthia wrote:

Jonathan_S wrote:Though we do know, at least for Shrikes, that the wedge allows them to maneuver more quickly than their reaction thrusters "Reaction thrusters flared, pushing LAC Wing One's bows sideways with old-fashioned brute power. It was slow and ponderous compared to maneuvering on impellers" [EoH]

Well it was and remains just as confusing to me as the first read through. Traditionally, propellers are the more modern wet navy equivalent. Every kid that has driven a boat with an outboard motor revels in his expertise. You control the angle of the propeller to give propulsion and control. Impellers are a more modern form of that as far as I know.

So in the HV, I thought the angle of the impellers is what changed the vector. And I thought the wedge was somehow powering the impellers.

And I still have a hard time accepting that thrusters can apply enough brute force to alter the course of something so large and accelerating so hard.

Those would presumably be the same type of fusion thrusters that Honor used to accelerate her ships at Cerberus to 150 g. That's a lot of brute force!

Also the impellers are the alpha and beta nodes that power the wedge -- it doesn't power them. Though they're presumably also something like the thrust blocks that the wedge pushes back against to push the ship.


But in the Shrike attack the thrusters weren't significantly altering the vector -- they were just altering the LAC's heading. Remember that, unlike an airplane or a ocean going ship, a spaceship can alter its heading without changing its course one iota -- there's no medium or aerodynamic / hydrodynamic forces to cause it to automatically follow its nose.

The Shrikes used their wedges to set up an attack vector that would have them sailing past their targets within energy range; but because they're flying by tangent to their target (rather than on a collision course) their bow isn't pointed at the target ship. And they don't want to turn in and point their bow (and spinal weapon) at their target without protection. So, without altering vector, they raise the bow wall cutting forward acceleration, use their powerful thrusters to pivot around to point their nose at the enemy and engage, then use thrusters to pivot back to their originally heading and drop the bow wall to resume acceleration.


That said, while the Shrike's didn't use thrusters to alter their vector, thrusters than can throw a BC around at 150g can definitely alter such a ship's vector should you want to. Not a quickly as a wedge can alter their vector -- but these aren't weak little hydrazine altitude jets like on the Shuttle.

cthia wrote:

Jonathan_S wrote:Though we do know, at least for Shrikes, that the wedge allows them to maneuver more quickly than their reaction thrusters "Reaction thrusters flared, pushing LAC Wing One's bows sideways with old-fashioned brute power. It was slow and ponderous compared to maneuvering on impellers" [EoH]

Well it was and remains just as confusing to me as the first read through. Traditionally, propellers are the more modern wet navy equivalent. Every kid that has driven a boat with an outboard motor revels in his expertise. You control the angle of the propeller to give propulsion and control. Impellers are a more modern form of that as far as I know.

So in the HV, I thought the angle of the impellers is what changed the vector. And I thought the wedge was somehow powering the impellers.

And I still have a hard time accepting that thrusters can apply enough brute force to alter the course of something so large and accelerating so hard.

Jonathan_S wrote:Those would presumably be the same type of fusion thrusters that Honor used to accelerate her ships at Cerberus to 50 g. That's a lot of brute force!

Also the impellers are the alpha and beta nodes that power the wedge -- it doesn't power them. Though they're presumably also something like the thrust blocks that the wedge pushes back against to push the ship.


But in the Shrike attack the thrusters weren't significantly altering the vector -- they were just altering the LAC's heading. Remember that, unlike an airplane or a ocean going ship, a spaceship can alter its heading without changing its course one iota -- there's no medium or aerodynamic / hydrodynamic forces to cause it to automatically follow its nose.

The Shrikes used their wedges to set up an attack vector that would have them sailing past their targets within energy range; but because they're flying by tangent to their target (rather than on a collision course) their bow isn't pointed at the target ship. And they don't want to turn in and point their bow (and spinal weapon) at their target without protection. So, without altering vector, they raise the bow wall cutting forward acceleration, use their powerful thrusters to pivot around to point their nose at the enemy and engage, then use thrusters to pivot back to their originally heading and drop the bow wall to resume acceleration.


That said, while the Shrike's didn't use thrusters to alter their vector, thrusters than can throw a BC around at 50g can definitely alter such a ship's vector should you want to. Not a quickly as a wedge can alter their vector -- but these aren't weak little hydrazine altitude jets like on the Shuttle.

They better not be puny hydrazine jets, and I am not even going to try and imagine how fusion thrusters work. Or how a constant fusion thruster can cause thrust that won't be seen like the grand finale at a fireworks display.

Apply my disbelief to the insane acceleration that missiles achieve, and yet they do have to alter their vector to chase down warships.

And y'all claim my high accel missile calls for too much handwavium. It is all beginning to look like a bunch of childish kids showing up at the playground with a cool bag of toys but not wanting to share the magic stuff.

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edit: sub. thrusters for reactors.

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