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Brigade XO wrote:Question, if they are in Hyperspace, is a LD also essentially invisible to every other navy's scanners.

Brigade XO wrote:I am perfectly willing to admit viewing the LDs as gigantic "submarines" that were designed to be invisible/ essentially undetectable 1st strike weapons against planetary systems as that was the tactics deployed against Manticore and Grayson in Oyster Bay. That and the bits about having to massively moved forward Oyster Bay to cripple both Manticore and Grayson too early since Manticore had totally thrown The Plan off track.

Here's the thing though-----without any more information than what we have been given about the Ghosts, Sharks and the LDs. there aren't a lot of other lines of inquiry

Sure, you COULD use the LD's to slink around wormholes (like the Manticore Junction bout actually any wormhole bridge works) and butcher mostly merchant shipping and the occasional warship as they queue ut for transit or are departing.

Yes the LDs are probably overkill for 95% of the inhabited worlds but since they are "invisible" they can hang around and be used as hope-breakers as they let the 1st round of triage and reorganizing orbital operations get almost done and then kill everybody involved in the effort. Your killing more of the best trained and experienced people in the system which further reduces the system's ability to recover... Perfect for the RF to come sailing in to save the day- at least as far as stopping raids.

The Alignment has an incredible need to remain invisible and not painted with any blame for what they rightly believe would be the ultimate reaction of people to the "genetic supermen" who intend to be the puppet masters of the Galaxy.

Or- Genocide Are Us - as I have come to see the Alignment.

What I am hoping NOT to see is a very large suite of weapons systems as different as the G-torps and the Spider Drive suddenly pop up when the Alignment decides (and it may not be that long) that the situation is even worse than they believed after Houdini went sideways, they were exposed and Galton didn't perform up to expectation in cutting back the GA fleet before being removed from the board as yet another misdirection scapegoat for the Alignment.

If the LDs can use hyperspace, then they could still hang off well beyond the sensor range of 95% of systems, drop their loads and then vanish up to a week or more before they blow the crap out some system's orbitals and kill a few million of the population.

Question, if they are in Hyperspace, is a LD also essentially invisible to every other navy's scanners.

tlb wrote:WOE: a word meaning great sorrow or distress, or something causing great sorrow or distress.

WHOA: a word used as a command to stop a horse, or indicating great excitement or surprise.

"Woe" would be correct, if you were wrong and the LD was about to be destroyed or captured.

Jonathan_S wrote:Don't see why they couldn't brake and loiter. (At least until they run out of power). The spider drive doesn't (as far as we know) burn itself out like a missile drive does - so as long as it can run it shouldn't care if the torp flips a 180 and starts slowing down.

(Now the torps might not have sensors on their tails - so it might be 'blind' while slowing down; or need to pull "Crazy Ivans" to occasionally look where it's going.


The difficulties with having one loiter off the stern of every ship are:
(a) Too likely for one to eventually be noticed -- I did say "if the stealth held"; and that's a big if at closer range surrounded by other ships.
(b) Would be left behind each time the ship left orbit - since, as noticed, the g-torps are slower accelerating than even many merchant ships.
(c) limited endurance. Yes they seem to have power for a week or so; but that's not very long if you want to have one loitering behind every ship waiting in case the MAlign decides to order them blown up.

tlb wrote:WOE: a word meaning great sorrow or distress, or something causing great sorrow or distress.

WHOA: a word used as a command to stop a horse, or indicating great excitement or surprise.

"Woe" would be correct, if you were wrong and the LD was about to be destroyed or captured.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:Or he's bemoaning my misunderstanding of the situation.

penny wrote:I can understand the misunderstanding.

It is a cultural thing, and regional. I live in the Bible Belt, and we use it in this sense, Woe unto you for being so wrong.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:Those can't keep up with ships, but I don't think any spider asset can. Mind you, we can still be proven wrong, because we know only that they can go to "a few hundred gravities," and the grav plate limit is 150 gravities, but weapons don't need to provide a 1g internal field, so a weapon could conceivably still get to 400 gravities under what we know about the drives.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:

Jonathan_S wrote:Don't see why they couldn't brake and loiter. (At least until they run out of power). The spider drive doesn't (as far as we know) burn itself out like a missile drive does - so as long as it can run it shouldn't care if the torp flips a 180 and starts slowing down.

(Now the torps might not have sensors on their tails - so it might be 'blind' while slowing down; or need to pull "Crazy Ivans" to occasionally look where it's going.


The difficulties with having one loiter off the stern of every ship are:
(a) Too likely for one to eventually be noticed -- I did say "if the stealth held"; and that's a big if at closer range surrounded by other ships.
(b) Would be left behind each time the ship left orbit - since, as noticed, the g-torps are slower accelerating than even many merchant ships.
(c) limited endurance. Yes they seem to have power for a week or so; but that's not very long if you want to have one loitering behind every ship waiting in case the MAlign decides to order them blown up.

The MAN already has an asset that can loiter for weeks, is small enough that it can go undetected for that long, and has very good on-board computing: the Silver Bullet. Against an unarmoured shuttle or yacht, it doesn't need a 3-second firing graser.

Those can't keep up with ships, but I don't think any spider asset can. Mind you, we can still be proven wrong, because we know only that they can go to "a few hundred gravities," and the grav plate limit is 150 gravities, but weapons don't need to provide a 1g internal field, so a weapon could conceivably still get to 400 gravities under what we know about the drives.

What this can do is loiter around where the ships must eventually come to: habitats and planets. Far enough away to not be detected by ships and static detection assets: say, nine million km (30 light-seconds) and well-off the least-time course to the hyperlimit. Once it detects its target and opportunity are coming, it can attempt to generate an intercept. Not by following, but by trying to cross the path of the target.

penny wrote:The Silver Bullet has good onboard computing. What about the g-torps? Are the Silver Bullets tube launched?

Max accel = 400 gravities.

0 - 400 gravities = ?

Since the SBs are smaller, they should be more maneuverable.

Yeah, in light of the brake-n-loiter tactic, stealth weapons should be pre-inserted. In that manner they are never chasing the ships; the ships are flying into their web. Said the spider to the fly.

It all reminds me of the tactic that killed Courvosier. The MA knows the GA has to keep "returning to the scene of the crime."

penny wrote:The Silver Bullet has good onboard computing. What about the g-torps? Are the Silver Bullets tube launched?

Max accel = 400 gravities.

0 - 400 gravities = ?

Since the SBs are smaller, they should be more maneuverable.

Yeah, in light of the brake-n-loiter tactic, stealth weapons should be pre-inserted. In that manner they are never chasing the ships; the ships are flying into their web. Said the spider to the fly.

It all reminds me of the tactic that killed Courvosier. The MA knows the GA has to keep "returning to the scene of the crime."

Jonathan_S wrote:So, no, they can't be tube launched by existing platforms (Sharks) and are very unlikely to be tube launchable even by Lenny Dets. They're built off bulking up a MAlign spider powered recon drone - with the graser-head off a g-torp grafted on the nose, some expanding solar panels stuck onto the body, and IIRC twice as many plasma capacitors as normal stuffed into its enlarged guts. And even regular sized recon drones are normally launched from boat bays -- not tubes.

Also 400 gravities is just a guess at what RFC meant by "a few hundred". Me, I guessed that actually meant 300, not 4, as 4 is verging towards "several" -- but all we know for sure is "a few hundred".