Defending a wormhole junction/terminus.

TheMonster wrote:
If you have the first set of 8 nodes in the normal position and the second set of 8 interpolated between them (offset 22.5 degrees from the first set) then you could lose nodes from either set and still have a full set arranged in the same relative positions.

I'm just not sure that works. The sails would come up in a different geometry on the ship (rotated 22.5 degrees), assuming you could actually afford and cram in 16 alpha nodes. It's kind of unclear how much internal volume alpha nodes take, it really might not be practical to have a double set, instead of the traditional 8 betas and 8 alphas. From the sounds of it the impeller ring portion of the ship already doesn't allow much space in the core. Alpha nodes are a lot bigger than beta (3x size, 6x energy required, 2x thrust) so a dual ring of alphas is going to take more cubage than a normal ring of 8 alphas and 16 betas. At minimum you'd have to scrub all the beta nodes, reducing your thrust by a third and increasing power consumption by 50%.

Even if it did work, you'd only improve your odds of keeping a sail by a little bit. If you only lose 1 node, sure, it'll work. If you lose 2+, odds increase that you'll lose some from both sets as the number affected increase.

fester wrote:From AAC, e-ARC p. 537 of the .doc format:

In fact, Manticore-B's forts and space station were already refitting with Keyhole II and would begin deploying the first of the system-defense Apollo pods within the next three weeks, on the theory that it would need them worse since it couldn't call as readily on Home Fleet's protection.

Hmm. Good catch.

darrell wrote:You can use gravity to help you. There is a spot known as the L2 Larange point. (further away from the Sun.)

A spacecraft placed there is more distant from the Sun and therefore should orbit it more slowly than the Earth; but the extra pull of the Earth adds up to the Sun's pull, and this allows the spacecraft to move faster and keep up with Earth.

At a certain point, the spacecraft’s orbital period equals that of Earth’s. This is L2. It is located 1.5 million kilometres directly 'behind' the Earth as viewed from the Sun. It is about four times further away from the Earth than the Moon.

With the weaker pull of the maticore A star on sphinx, the star/sphinx L2 larange point would be between 2 and 3 Mkm tward the hyper limit from sphynx (7-10 light seconds) this would be ideal for a cluster of pods and or forts. You don't need thrusters to keep them in place

There is also an arc that runs from L2 to L5 behind sphinx orbit, not quite as stable as L2 that would also be suitable for placing pods or forts. these would require minimum orbital corrections.

The L2 point is unstable. You can't actually sit there without station-keeping.

SWM wrote:

darrell wrote:You can use gravity to help you. There is a spot known as the L2 Larange point. (further away from the Sun.)

A spacecraft placed there is more distant from the Sun and therefore should orbit it more slowly than the Earth; but the extra pull of the Earth adds up to the Sun's pull, and this allows the spacecraft to move faster and keep up with Earth.

At a certain point, the spacecraft’s orbital period equals that of Earth’s. This is L2. It is located 1.5 million kilometres directly 'behind' the Earth as viewed from the Sun. It is about four times further away from the Earth than the Moon.

With the weaker pull of the maticore A star on sphinx, the star/sphinx L2 larange point would be between 2 and 3 Mkm tward the hyper limit from sphynx (7-10 light seconds) this would be ideal for a cluster of pods and or forts. You don't need thrusters to keep them in place

There is also an arc that runs from L2 to L5 behind sphinx orbit, not quite as stable as L2 that would also be suitable for placing pods or forts. these would require minimum orbital corrections.

The L2 point is unstable. You can't actually sit there without station-keeping.

If you are perfectly placed, stationkeeping is not nessesary, however, I was not assuming that, as only 1 fort or a few pods can be perfetly placed. If you notice, I said gravity can help, not that gravity can do it all.

If you have a significant force at or near the larange point, the cost of stationkeeping is signifcantly less than the cost if the force is anywhere else besides in orbit around sphynx. IMO, it would be best to put pods there, as they will stay there with effectively no maintance needed for months, and forts can manuver without outside assistance.

darrell wrote:If you are perfectly placed, stationkeeping is not nessesary, however, I was not assuming that, as only 1 fort or a few pods can be perfetly placed. If you notice, I said gravity can help, not that gravity can do it all.

But if you have to do any station-keeping at all, you're emitting something that makes it easier for an attacker to locate you. Pods in orbit are ballistic, which makes them very difficult to pinpoint.

You want a potential attacker to know that you have pods, but not their exact location, so they are deterred from even trying anything. If they think they know where all your pods are, they might try their version of Mistletoe on you.

TheMonster wrote:Pods in orbit are ballistic, which makes them very difficult to pinpoint.

You want a potential attacker to know that you have pods, but not their exact location, so they are deterred from even trying anything. If they think they know where all your pods are, they might try their version of Mistletoe on you.

But compared to the sensors on recon drones planetary orbit seems like a pretty small place to hide the shoals of missile pods that current system defense strategy calls for.

If they're in orbit an enemy's version of Mistletoe is almost certainly going to be able to find and deal with them; whether or not there is occasional station keeping drive use.

(I have wondering before if the development of mistletoe is eventually going to put an end to unshielded system defense missile pods emplacements. Force defenders to keep pods in some kind of fort; behind armor and sidewalls so attackers can't get cheap kills with mistletoe)

TheMonster wrote:

darrell wrote:If you are perfectly placed, stationkeeping is not nessesary, however, I was not assuming that, as only 1 fort or a few pods can be perfetly placed. If you notice, I said gravity can help, not that gravity can do it all.

But if you have to do any station-keeping at all, you're emitting something that makes it easier for an attacker to locate you. Pods in orbit are ballistic, which makes them very difficult to pinpoint.

You want a potential attacker to know that you have pods, but not their exact location, so they are deterred from even trying anything. If they think they know where all your pods are, they might try their version of Mistletoe on you.

You don't need the Larange point, it is just one logical point to put missile pods. Something within a couple thousand KM of the larange point would remain approximatly on station for months, at which time it will need servicing, and the servicing ship would re-position the pod.

The orbital speed of something 1% further out, (2 million km) and not in the L2 larange point is about 1/2% slower. The average speed of an asteroid with an orbital time of 4 years (sphinx has a 5 year orbital period) is about 20km/sec. That would be 100m/sec slower 2Mkm further out.

A missile pod can be placed one million km in front of Sphinx in orbit at orbital speed. It would take 20 million seconds (231 days, 7 1/2 months) before it would travel 2 million km to 1Mkm behind sphinx. At this time, the pod will be picked up, serviced, and while it is serviced will be moved back to the front of the line.

I've never seen the math, but I'd bet that a low thrust solar powered ion engine could do the minimal station keeping required. All you need to do is keep the pods from drifting so they will produce wedge interference. Final orientation for launch etc is done with a running fusion reactor, at which point the pods are really hot targets and stealth no longer matters.

Jonathan_S wrote:But compared to the sensors on recon drones planetary orbit seems like a pretty small place to hide the shoals of missile pods that current system defense strategy calls for.
...
(I have wondering before if the development of mistletoe is eventually going to put an end to unshielded system defense missile pods emplacements. Force defenders to keep pods in some kind of fort; behind armor and sidewalls so attackers can't get cheap kills with mistletoe)

What does it take to produce a drone that can throw a bubble "sidewall" around a clutch of pods? You don't need a full-up fort to provide some minimal protection. Of course, throwing up a bubble makes you visible. Is there such a thing as a stealthed bubble?

Since forts don't have to use the same geometry as ships, it's easy to imagine some very clever designs for forts that can hold squadrons of LACs and assloads of pods as well as batteries of grasers and PDLCs. These forts would be a barely mobile (and non-hyper-capable) form of the ever-popular Battlestar.

The normal objection to Battlestars is that you don't let CLACs get close enough to the enemy to get into missile engagements, much less energy-weapon range. But that doesn't apply to a fort, which is for strategic purposes immobile. A fort can't withdraw to a position outside of enemy range. It must defend its position.

So you either have a separate CLAC that can withdraw, or you provide LAC basing facilities as part of your fort. Just don't call it a Battlestar, or DW will have to find a reason why they don't make sense.

Shhhhhhh....

Pretty much, but a fort is strategically mobile. It is tactically effectively immobile. Maneuvering at 10-30g can't get you very far in an hour, but it certainly can in a week.