Spider drive ships

Jonathan_S wrote:

Mycall4me wrote:I hadn't considered that the spider drive ships would need alpha nodes for hyper wave travel, I'm pretty sure David doesn't say either way, but it seems to me that the shark class ships were actually carried to Manticore on freighters. Obviously that's not going to be possible for the LD podnaughts, so a dual drive would have to be necessary. This opens up the possibility of detection at least until they go to the spider drive. I wonder why David hasn't mentioned it in his descriptions of the spider drive. Unless I missed it?

I'm currently re reading the series and just finished Mission of Honor which is where he firsts describes the spider drive and it's advantages and disadvantages. Does he reveal any more details in any of the later books?

He doesn't really provide more detail on the drive beyond that.

He's said basically in a forum post "why would you assume they can't use wormholes"; but that's not the same thing as explicitly saying those existing spider ship designs can actually use wormholes or grav waves.

And it was the Ghosts that were carried to Manticore (and Grayson) inside freighters. The Sharks tractored themselves together into two clusters before very slowly hypering in to the very fringes of the Manticore system. (And both Ghosts and Sharks presumably self-extracted via hyper after the Oyster Bay attacks)

And Currently, the only way we know to use Grav Waves and Wormholes, is to use Sails produced by Alpha nodes. In addition, Sails specifically require the double ended spindle shaped ship form (non-grav wave optimized ships, like Forts, do not require this hull shape.)

So if Spider ship use wormholes and Grav waves:

1) They have Alpha nodes and have a way to change their physical geometry for proper node placement for Sail use. (The transformation technology not mentioned anywhere.)

2) The spider drive can create sails or the equivalent to interact with grav waves and wormholes (a technology not mentioned anywhere)

3) Spider Drive ships have a 3rd drive system technology allowing them to interact with Grav Waves and Wromholes which has not been mentioned, and is an additional breakthrough (a technology not mentioned anywhere)

Or Spider drive ships cannot use Wormholes and Grav waves.

Of the 3, a Pair of alpha rings on mechanical rams seems the most probable, but would be a massive mass waster. In addition to the Alpha rings, and mechanical structure, a Compensator would also be required - one large enough to encompass the expanded Alpha ring framework, since using Grav Sails requires the compensator as a grav sump.

Theemile wrote:In addition to the Alpha rings, and mechanical structure, a Compensator would also be required - one large enough to encompass the expanded Alpha ring framework, since using Grav Sails requires the compensator as a grav sump.

Technically I don't think that's true.

In fact, the wiki timeline claims that the Warshawski sail was invented about a century before the compensator (1273 PD vs 1384 PD) so those early ships would have been using grav waves without compensators.

Mind you, doing so wastes on of the big advantages of using a 'wave -- the extra acceleration. Without the compensator you'd presumably be limited to a few gees of accel whether in the wave or not (though I don't think we know when grav plates were invented, nor now many gees the early ones could counter -- so the accel might be in the low double digits of gees instead). But there's no reason you can't accelerate slowly under sails -- which would let you access places that would otherwise be blocked by grav waves. Plus you'd have the safety from rogue waves and the energy siphon fuel savings -- so it's not worthless; it's just worth less

However compensators were invented before wormholes were discovered or transited -- so we don't know if they're required for wormhole transit. (Though I'd guess not)

Jonathan_S wrote:

Theemile wrote:In addition to the Alpha rings, and mechanical structure, a Compensator would also be required - one large enough to encompass the expanded Alpha ring framework, since using Grav Sails requires the compensator as a grav sump.

Technically I don't think that's true.

In fact, the wiki timeline claims that the Warshawski sail was invented about a century before the compensator (1273 PD vs 1384 PD) so those early ships would have been using grav waves without compensators.

Mind you, doing so wastes on of the big advantages of using a 'wave -- the extra acceleration. Without the compensator you'd presumably be limited to a few gees of accel whether in the wave or not (though I don't think we know when grav plates were invented, nor now many gees the early ones could counter -- so the accel might be in the low double digits of gees instead). But there's no reason you can't accelerate slowly under sails -- which would let you access places that would otherwise be blocked by grav waves. Plus you'd have the safety from rogue waves and the energy siphon fuel savings -- so it's not worthless; it's just worth less

However compensators were invented before wormholes were discovered or transited -- so we don't know if they're required for wormhole transit. (Though I'd guess not)

True, but without the comp, a Grav sail really only allows you to avoid being crushed by the wave, it doesn't really allow you to sail with it - in that intervening century, the sail was probably used more to go through the wave in hyper, not ride along with it.

But agreed, the Comp is not required, especially for a wormhole... but it is a good thing to have - and would be a strategic hinderance if you do not.