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Theemile wrote:1) Geometry - a Wedge based ship has the double ended spindle shape so it can form a wedge and sails, and have an optimized compensator to allow for the maximum acceleration. A spider drive ship has a truncated pyramidal shape for the Spider Drive.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:

penny wrote:If Imperator ventures too closely to an LD, it is going to bite her.

Yes, but as I've been trying to say, it's criminal incompetence for the LD skipper to allow this to happen in the first place. HMS Imperator or any other SD is not going to be travelling alone, so this means this LD is allowing at a minimum a squadron of cruisers along with this SD to come close to itself.

I'm not talking about falling into an LD-laid trap, because said trap would not include coming close to the LD itself. The LD has options available to attack from a large stand-off distance.

An LD is the size of a fort. And the author said a fort can destroy how many SDs? So as a rhetorical question, how can anyone expect that a single SD will survive an attack from a big hairy Spider. Or worse, assume the big hairy Spider won't attack.

We're not.

We're saying that the LD can't survive the counter-attack either. It may raise a bubblewall, but then it can't accelerate - that would make it a static fort in enemy space, which is pointless. Such a fort may be able to launch enough missiles to take the cruiser and destroyer escort, but by this time any other assets in the system will have locked on the position of this LD and fired MDMs at it, because the bubblewall is highly visible.

No, the LD must be able to survive without having to raise the bubblewall in the first place. That means not being anywhere close to the escorts' counter-attack.

Predatory arachnids are not in the habit of letting prey just walk right by or stumble into their web without striking.

And taking a page from the arachnids, they don't attack their prey until after said prey has become ensnared in the web. I don't know for sure without consulting Wikipedia, but I'd also expect spiders to not come close to large and dangerous prey until after they've become tired. That is, the spider is sitting away from the prey, out of reach. Only after this does it come close to inject the venom and kill the prey.

That will not work for every prey: some of them may be able to get away from the web, even damaging it, especially large ones. But the spider survives and can repair the web. So long as sufficient prey do get caught and tire, the spider can thrive.

Theemile wrote:Another point, even if a LD is the size of a Fort, doesn't mean it has the firepower of a fort. A fort has several prime advantages over a starship other than shear size.

1) Geometry - a Wedge based ship has the double ended spindle shape so it can form a wedge and sails, and have an optimized compensator to allow for the maximum acceleration. A spider drive ship has a truncated pyramidal shape for the Spider Drive.

A Fort can be almost any shape, but are usually an oblate sphere with a wedge ring on one pole, a design optimized for defense.

2) Forts don't allow much mass for drive systems - cutting out a compensator, alpha nodes, hypergenerators, etc, allow for more mass % to be spent on weapons and defenses. A classic SD devotes just 55-60% of it's mass to weapons and defenses. We don't know what the mass proportion of a LD is, but we know the Spider Drive is more mass intensive in smaller ships than a Wedge system is.

3) Forts devote a smaller mass % to crew recreations, supplies, and spares. Forts do not need to be an island on their own, surviving for 3-6 months under their own auspices, like you would expect a starship to do. Running out of any consumable in 2 weeks is not as critical for a fort as it is for a starship. Forts can offload any non-warfighting function to an adjacent civilian type platform that supports it. A starship has a hydroponic bay to provide continuous fresh food, where a Fort can have the same delivered daily from a nearby planet or specialized habitat.

4) Forts do not need as many non-warfighting personnel - Admin and support personnel can be stationed on nearby supply/support/repair platforms. This allows a group of forts to have a central group of support personnel to cover their needs.

5) Forts are not just what is in their shell. Forts are surrounded by clouds of bomb pumped mines, shoals of system defense missile pods, Independent Energy Weapons Platforms (IEWPs), and remote missile launchers that they control. So when it is said that these 5 forts can destroy 30 SDs, the discussion is actually the combat power of all the dispersed systems attached to the command which are controlled by the forts, not just the forts themselves.

So pound for pound, a Fort has a higher mass % dedicated to weapons and defenses than a starship - most likely >85% is dedicated to weapons inside their shell, and 3-400% the weapons in a ship if you include the dispersed combat power. In other words, a 7 million ton Fort has more combat power than a 8.4 Mton Gryphon SD with just it's internal capability, and the combat power of 4 or 5 Gryphons with it's dispersed hardware.

Because it's a mobile unit, a 10 Mton LD does not have any where near the combat power of a 10 Mton Fort, even if they mass the same. In fact, because of mass penalities due to the need for a bubble sidewall, and the extra mass of a spider drive and other factors associated with the unique geometry of ship required for the spider drive, it is possible that a 10Mton LD may have less combat power than a 8.7 Mton Invictus. I agree that the LD probably carries more, but given what we know and don't know, we really can't make that determination.

penny wrote:A mind experiment

What would be the result of a Silver Bullet or a g-torp crashing into a GA drone and being embedded into it, stuck to it, without any system damage to either technology.

Jonathan_S wrote:

Theemile wrote:1) Geometry - a Wedge based ship has the double ended spindle shape so it can form a wedge and sails, and have an optimized compensator to allow for the maximum acceleration. A spider drive ship has a truncated pyramidal shape for the Spider Drive.

That's not how I'd understood the description of a spider ship's shape. There was nothing that I can recall saying they were tapered - just that they're "squat, stumpy, and downright peculiar looking" [MoH], and that they had "literally dozens of nodes to project spurs or spikes of intensely focused gravity" [MoH] with "three sets of “spider legs,” which led directly to the “triple skeg” hull form which had been adopted." [MoH], forming the "spider’s triple “keels,”" [MoH]

So if the hull is an extruded triangle then I assume the skegs/keels run fore to aft along the apexes. But nothing in the descriptions I found or remember says anything about a fore or aft taper to the hull; so I certainly didn't envision it as a truncated pyramid -- more as an extruded triangle with constant cross section.

penny wrote: Premise: If an LD gets a chance to bite Imperator, it will. It doesn't matter how the two will get into striking range of each other. Shit happens. And the LD may strike even if it has to abandon its current mission.

And I do not think arrogance should allow one to assign blame to the LD for allowing such a scenario to happen. That is preposterous. Your imagination is limited and born out of arrogance and complacence for the almighty Manty. My entire point for posting that true story of me almost walking into a huge spider web was for the sole purpose of showing that it can happen. How in the hell did I manage to let that happen is beyond me. But the spider was not in danger. I was. The forest has been missed for the trees, the fact that I almost stumbled into the spider and its web highlights the fact that I didn't detect it. Since I didn't detect it, I was not at battle stations. Moreover, I had exposed myself! The spider had ambushed me and literally caught me with my pants down and with my useless weapon in my hand.

But the spider can not be blamed if that is his nest! The lack of imagination confines your thoughts to a MBS that is intact and had not been attacked. After a war has started -- the opening volley in the MBS will kick the war off -- then assets will be lost. Screens will be lost. Part of Honor's fleet will be gone. It will become a chess match.

My strategy for destroying the MBS has always been the same. The MA has unprecedented technology that will allow them access to tactics unavailable to any other combatant.

For instance, ambushing an opponent is a staple of war. A common tactic. An LDs stealth will allow it to do so easily. Regardless of whether the LD is in danger itself.

Getting sufficient resources behind enemy lines has always been both a plan and a problem. Most of you are not carrying that thought through. You can only imagine a healthy MBS whose shiny new ships don't have any scratches on them before the first flaming datum. After that, all bets are off. And if an LD or three has gotten behind enemy lines and Grand fleet is taking casualties battling the MA's ships with wedges, then Honor's weakened fleet, scrambling, anxious, maneuvering under fire while being completely oblivious of the LDs location or existence, can certainly stumble right into an LDs kill zone. That LD will strike! It has a chance to eliminate Honor!

Theemile wrote:

Jonathan_S wrote:That's not how I'd understood the description of a spider ship's shape. There was nothing that I can recall saying they were tapered - just that they're "squat, stumpy, and downright peculiar looking" [MoH], and that they had "literally dozens of nodes to project spurs or spikes of intensely focused gravity" [MoH] with "three sets of “spider legs,” which led directly to the “triple skeg” hull form which had been adopted." [MoH], forming the "spider’s triple “keels,”" [MoH]

So if the hull is an extruded triangle then I assume the skegs/keels run fore to aft along the apexes. But nothing in the descriptions I found or remember says anything about a fore or aft taper to the hull; so I certainly didn't envision it as a truncated pyramid -- more as an extruded triangle with constant cross section.

I could very much be wrong on the shape, that what I imagined it to look like from the description and honestly your description does make more sense than what I had imagined - but my point remains, the drive dictates the hull shape, not weapons/defense systems optimzation, where as the opposite is true for a Fort. Extra mass is required for structure that is not optimized for the weapons systems. It may not be much, but it's an important detail, added with everything else, and means that a LD is going to dedicate more of it's mass to structure and support systems (as well as an increase in defensive systems to get the same protection) than a fort does, so KG for KG will be less effective than a fort.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:

penny wrote:For instance, ambushing an opponent is a staple of war. A common tactic. An LDs stealth will allow it to do so easily. Regardless of whether the LD is in danger itself.

Yes, it can do that easily, regardless of danger. But if it also has available one that does not include the danger component, why would it choose the one with it?

Theemile wrote:1) Geometry - a Wedge based ship has the double ended spindle shape so it can form a wedge and sails, and have an optimized compensator to allow for the maximum acceleration. A spider drive ship has a truncated pyramidal shape for the Spider Drive.

Jonathan_S wrote:That's not how I'd understood the description of a spider ship's shape. There was nothing that I can recall saying they were tapered - just that they're "squat, stumpy, and downright peculiar looking" [MoH], and that they had "literally dozens of nodes to project spurs or spikes of intensely focused gravity" [MoH] with "three sets of “spider legs,” which led directly to the “triple skeg” hull form which had been adopted." [MoH], forming the "spider’s triple “keels,”" [MoH]

So if the hull is an extruded triangle then I assume the skegs/keels run fore to aft along the apexes. But nothing in the descriptions I found or remember says anything about a fore or aft taper to the hull; so I certainly didn't envision it as a truncated pyramid -- more as an extruded triangle with constant cross section.

Theemile wrote:I could very much be wrong on the shape, that what I imagined it to look like from the description and honestly your description does make more sense than what I had imagined - but my point remains, the drive dictates the hull shape, not weapons/defense systems optimzation, where as the opposite is true for a Fort. Extra mass is required for structure that is not optimized for the weapons systems. It may not be much, but it's an important detail, added with everything else, and means that a LD is going to dedicate more of it's mass to structure and support systems (as well as an increase in defensive systems to get the same protection) than a fort does, so KG for KG will be less effective than a fort.

penny wrote:I see the problem here. The problem is the forum's inability to accept the discussion as is. It is an issue that has always plagued me. To properly discuss a thread, the thread's premise, its entry point, must be accepted. At the end of the day, it doesn't matter how we get to that point, but we are discussing the scenario from that point on. We are not discussing the trip or how we got from point A to point B. We are discussing what happens after we arrive at point B. After we arrive at Disneyland. It doesn't matter that we had to change busses several times, 23 subways, a train, a plane, several mopeds, a horse drawn carriage... yeah, that's another discussion.

tlb wrote:If we really were required to follow that rule, then you are way out of bounds; since the entry for this thread was the following question:

What is the most important technology that could fall into [MALIGN RMN SLN] hands

MIND CONTROL IS DEFINITELY A GIVEN, YET STILL IN PLAY.

As it happens that question was abandoned before many pages were entered, yet here we are at page 153. But that is NOT a forum rule, so we can and will discuss how we got to point B, if we want. Or even if point A was a good place to begin.

penny wrote:Sigh.

Please follow the context. "Thread" is used loosely in this instance only as a label for the current discussion. MyCall4Me was questioning the discussion of many other threads of conversation in his thread.

This thread is an amalgamation of many concepts.

No need to bring up the rules. The spirit of the law should carry over into every discussion. For the same of the discussion.

tlb wrote:The point that I was making remains, even under your limitation of what a "thread" means. From Perry Mason I remember the concept that when a piece of paper in introduced in court, then it is permitted to examine "all four corners". You prefer that responses to something which you post should accept some of what you say as foundational to anything written in reply. It is as though you see yourself as the conductor of a student orchestra and demand that we all stick to the sheet music that you have handed out.