SLN, and MAlign playing catch up with Manticoran superiority

penny wrote:
I don't suppose we know the range of the LD's tractors?

David implied PDLC range. Don’t get in a knife fight with one, it will rip your guts out.

Jonathan_S wrote:

penny wrote:Certainly the wedge should be seen, or evidence of a wedge because of the highly concentrated gravity affecting photons locally. But I would expect a gravity-based propulsion system deployed by the spider drive tractors to also be of such high concentration that there should be a noticeable effect created around local space-time. A concentrated gravitic phenomena is responsible for propelling a massive object like the LD. If the gravitic tractors are akin to steel chains for sake of conversation, they'd have to be very strong (powerful) chains lest they break. I'd expect there to be some sort of localized distortion. As areas of highly concentrated gravity create a phenomena called frame-dragging in local space-time, which is a very visible effect. As I mentioned much further upstream when discussing infinite mass projectiles. And I think that should be detectable without a complex spider drive detector.

I don't suppose we know the range of the LD's tractors?

Possibly - yet somehow the tractors do that without creating the ripples along the Alpha wall that allow other space-time affective grav wedges (and sidewalls) to be detected FTL using Warshaski detectors. Because RFC has said explicitly that detecting a spider drive "will be a --- ahem --- non-trivial challenge" and if they were generating ripples even as strong as a sidewall, that wouldn't be very hard to detect (even if the pattern of those ripples looks weird).

But given the unknowns around them they might well accelerate/deflect photons while somehow not producing FTL ripples. (Or they may not. Massive unknowns)

As for the spider tractors' range. I also don't think we really know that.
There's some text that leads me to think they're pretty short ranged compared to weapons -- but even assuming that's true that still leave least a lot of possibility space. FWIW said I'd be surprised if their range was less than several km; but also surprised if it exceeded, say, 50,000 km. (But that's an uncertainly of four orders of magnitude - so again; massive unknowns).

As the spider tractors push/pull against the alpha wall, I'm not sure whether they have any range within our 3D space. (The alpha wall clearly isn't in any of our 3 dimensions of space.)

I'm also not sure whether they have anything in common (except the name) with conventional tractor beams used to pull spaceships, pods etc., as they're not pushing/pulling physical objects within 3D space, but against another dimension.

So while normal tractor beams may or may not expose any behaviour making them "visible" to optical / electormagnetic or grav sensors, none of that might apply to the spider tractors.

And the ripples they generate might be very small, diminishing within the backround noise on longer distances.

kzt wrote:

penny wrote:
I don't suppose we know the range of the LD's tractors?

David implied PDLC range. Don’t get in a knife fight with one, it will rip your guts out.

IOW, as in the battle with Sirius when Honor is Fearless, raped and left for naked, her guts would have been ripped out too. Art’s imitation of life .

I simply can't get over thinking the tractors can be utilized as point defense. Perhaps limited, and as an emergency, but still.

The method to my madness ...

Jonathan_S wrote:Unlike the wedge (which gets much of the energy needed to accelerate the ship via the siphon effect from hyperspace) the spider drive ship would need to generate every watt of power needed to accelerate the ship -- which far more than offsets any power savings from its lower acceleration rates.

Siphon effect implies a piercing of hyperspace. To siphon gasoline from a tank, the tube must reach from the outside of the tank all the way to the inside of the tank making contact with the gasoline.

IF a Spider's tractors are actually piercing the wall into hyperspace while it “grabs” it, and since waste heat can be directed, then perhaps waste heat is somehow directed into hyperspace.

Or some dimension not in n_space…

Markusschaber wrote:As the spider tractors push/pull against the alpha wall, I'm not sure whether they have any range within our 3D space. (The alpha wall clearly isn't in any of our 3 dimensions of space.)

penny wrote:IF a Spider's tractors are actually piercing the wall into hyperspace while it “grabs” it, and since waste heat can be directed, then perhaps waste heat is somehow directed into hyperspace.

If the spider drive had that capability, then it would be used by the Ghost class ships. But in the Grayson system, Apparition was just radiating it into space like normal electro-magnetic energy. To solve the problem the text says "like other navies' stealth systems, the MAN's dealt with that by radiating that heat away from known enemy sensors".

You may be setting yourself up for disappointment by trying to imagine a perfect stealth weapon system, when the logic of the story dictates that the Grand Alliance eventually defeats it; meaning that it could not be "perfect".

tlb wrote:

penny wrote:IF a Spider's tractors are actually piercing the wall into hyperspace while it “grabs” it, and since waste heat can be directed, then perhaps waste heat is somehow directed into hyperspace.

If the spider drive had that capability, then it would be used by the Ghost class ships. But in the Grayson system, Apparition was just radiating it into space like normal electro-magnetic energy. To solve the problem the text says "like other navies' stealth systems, the MAN's dealt with that by radiating that heat away from known enemy sensors".

You may be setting yourself up for disappointment by trying to imagine a perfect stealth weapon system, when the logic of the story dictates that the Grand Alliance eventually defeats it; meaning that it could not be "perfect".

The Ghost class ships might not have had tractors powerful enough to pierce hyperspace. An LD's stealth may be much better as a function of its size, because of the more powerful tractors.

I am not trying to imagine a perfect stealth system. I am trying to imagine a weapon system that eliminates "waste heat" specifically, in a manner that it does not cause a problem in storyline; as efficiently as the recon drones swanning around all about the system undetected, despite the fact that they should be hotter than a witch's poo. We already know that the stealth system will ultimately not be perfect, because we should expect there to be a spider-drive detector. Not a waste-heat detector. Besides, I am simply a fan who wants this enemy to be more than a paper tiger, unlike the big bad 800lb gorilla.

.

penny wrote:The Ghost class ships might not have had tractors powerful enough to pierce hyperspace. An LD's stealth may be much better as a function of its size, because of the more powerful tractors.

Um - then how did their spider drive work?
It's not like we've got a separate description for the LD's drive.

Mission of Honor - Ch. 28 wrote:The ships which had mounted Oyster Bay, however, represented a radical departure from anything the galaxy had previously seen [...]
the spider used literally dozens of nodes to project spurs or spikes of intensely focused gravity. For all intents and purposes, each of those spurs was almost like generating a tractor or a presser beam, except that no one in his right mind had ever imagined tractors or pressers that powerful. [...]
these focused, directional beams were powerful enough to create their own tiny foci—effectively, holes in the “real” universe—in which space itself was so highly stressed that the beams punched clear through to the alpha wall, the interface between normal-space and hyper-space.
No single beam would have been of any particular use [...] But it did lock onto the wall, and that provided the ship which mounted it a purchase point in deep space—one which was always available, anywhere, in any direction. And when dozens of those beams were combined, reaching out, locking onto the alpha wall and pulling in micro-spaced bursts, they produced something that was very useful, indeed.

Punching through to the Alpha wall is how a spider, any spider, drive works. So, yes, the Ghosts are just as capable of that as an LD will be; else they wouldn't have been able to move.


For that matter there's no indication that a given spider node on an LD is any more powerful than one on a Ghost or a Shark. (Might be, might not be. But doesn't necessarily need to be because the larger ship could just mount more nodes of the power; which collectively could get it to the max accel its crew can take)

Jonathan_S wrote:

penny wrote:The Ghost class ships might not have had tractors powerful enough to pierce hyperspace. An LD's stealth may be much better as a function of its size, because of the more powerful tractors.

Um - then how did their spider drive work?
It's not like we've got a separate description for the LD's drive.

Mission of Honor - Ch. 28 wrote:The ships which had mounted Oyster Bay, however, represented a radical departure from anything the galaxy had previously seen [...]
the spider used literally dozens of nodes to project spurs or spikes of intensely focused gravity. For all intents and purposes, each of those spurs was almost like generating a tractor or a presser beam, except that no one in his right mind had ever imagined tractors or pressers that powerful. [...]
these focused, directional beams were powerful enough to create their own tiny foci—effectively, holes in the “real” universe—in which space itself was so highly stressed that the beams punched clear through to the alpha wall, the interface between normal-space and hyper-space.
No single beam would have been of any particular use [...] But it did lock onto the wall, and that provided the ship which mounted it a purchase point in deep space—one which was always available, anywhere, in any direction. And when dozens of those beams were combined, reaching out, locking onto the alpha wall and pulling in micro-spaced bursts, they produced something that was very useful, indeed.

Punching through to the Alpha wall is how a spider, any spider, drive works. So, yes, the Ghosts are just as capable of that as an LD will be; else they wouldn't have been able to move.


For that matter there's no indication that a given spider node on an LD is any more powerful than one on a Ghost or a Shark. (Might be, might not be. But doesn't necessarily need to be because the larger ship could just mount more nodes of the power; which collectively could get it to the max accel its crew can take)

Thanks for the textev! Without it I wasn't sure whether I should be mindful of the term "grab" rather than pierce. And you know how I have suffered with understanding the author's tech. At any rate, that is why I included...

"The LD's stealth may be better because of its size, thus the result of having more powerful tractors, or because of some other method that is a function of its size."

It could very well be that the LDs tractors are more powerful enabling it to dissipate heat into hyperspace. That would also prevent the need for the author to retcon it.

It also might be that the smaller ship's tractors are not efficient enough to allow the exchange.

I would think that a much smaller spider-driven object should be capable of a much higher acceleration.

penny wrote:I would think that a much smaller spider-driven object should be capable of a much faster acceleration.

Depends.
From what I can gather Spider acceleration is a trade-off between two competing factors.
a) Each addition trio of nodes adds acceleration
b) Each additional kilo of mass removes acceleration

(And then, at least for crewed ships, grav plates and crew durability cap maximum usable acceleration)

We have explicit text that g-torps (and so presumably Wraiths and Silver Bullets) are accel limited because their (comparatively) small size limits how many nodes can be crammed onto their hulls. So despite being vastly smaller than even a Ghost they're not much quicker than a ship's emergency accel.

So shrinking things down should reduce their mass, helping with accel, but shrink them much and you start losing node trios which reduces it again. Not sure where the sweet-spot is for max accel - but it's kind of academic as it'd be too big for an RD or weapon and thus likely some size of ship; so, in practice, crew-limited.


Given the square-cube law an LD, despite being a lot bigger than even a Shark, will have less surface area per kg and so that should translate into fewer node trios per kg; and hurt its theoretical max acceleration. But I tend to doubt it'll limit it enough that the crew isn't still the practical limiting factor.

tlb wrote:

penny wrote:IF a Spider's tractors are actually piercing the wall into hyperspace while it “grabs” it, and since waste heat can be directed, then perhaps waste heat is somehow directed into hyperspace.

If the spider drive had that capability, then it would be used by the Ghost class ships. But in the Grayson system, Apparition was just radiating it into space like normal electro-magnetic energy. To solve the problem the text says "like other navies' stealth systems, the MAN's dealt with that by radiating that heat away from known enemy sensors".

SNIP

Radiating the heat into hyper is also "away from known enemy sensors." But it could be that Apparition was not accelerating. Perhaps it was idling or coasting. If the notion is valid, it could be that a spider drive can only radiate heat into hyper while accelerating. IOW, I could be wrong in one respect, in that the spider drives actually run hotter at idle. Akin to automobiles.

Idling is hard on a car; they run hotter for the most part, due to less air flow over the radiator.