Topic Actions

Topic Search

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: Google [Bot] and 39 guests

What happens to all that debris?

Join us in talking discussing all things Honor, including (but not limited to) tactics, favorite characters, and book discussions.
Re: What happens to all that debris?
Post by tlb   » Thu Nov 05, 2020 9:55 am

tlb
Fleet Admiral

Posts: 3854
Joined: Mon Sep 03, 2012 11:34 am

cthia wrote:
ThinksMarkedly wrote:Which means I don't see any reason why those capacitors would remain charged after the wedge is brought up. A charged high-energy capacitor is a danger. Especially if it is full of plasma. Keeping them charged probably also reduces their useful life.

Ok, I take that back. I can see one reason: under battle conditions, you may want to be able to restart your wedge if it gets somehow knocked out. You don't want to wait for half an hour to trickle-charge the capacitors while trying to flee an enemy... which you aren't doing since you have no wedge in the first place. And if your ship is damaged, you may not even have all reactors running at full output or have the power distribution system at 100%, so may not be able to charge capacitors until you effect repairs.

Another reason - perhaps the main reason they are used in the first place - is for quickly available high bursts of power. Like deploying all grasers at their fastest rate of fire.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:The remaining question would be if you keep the capacitors charged while not under battle conditions. If you know you're going into battle, you can charge the capacitors ahead of time and ride the whole battle charged -- and maybe the capacitors help in charging missiles' capacitors too. But this would be a problem if battle surprises you, unless David decides that once you have the wedge up, you can extract energy from the Alpha band via the wedge and recharge the capacitors very quickly.

I've never known capacitors to be used in any system and not kept fully charged. That would be defeating the purpose of having these very expensive devices.

Any system? Capacitors in an AC to DC power converter are continually cycling between charge levels as they work to smooth out the AC ripple. Earlier in another thread there was a discussion of whether missiles were kept fully charged, even in supply ships.

Obviously capacitors would not be fully charged in any device that was turned off for an extended period of time. Normally in a ship there is a reactor working at all times, because reactor startup needs plasma. In a repair dock all reactors can be shut off and the capacitors drained, because the station can supply plasma when work is finished.

I expect that the grasers and defensive lasers are fed from the capacitors, as the reactors work to keep the capacitors' charge up. So in a warship the capacitors will be charged.
Top
Re: What happens to all that debris?
Post by cthia   » Thu Nov 05, 2020 10:13 am

cthia
Fleet Admiral

Posts: 14951
Joined: Thu Jan 23, 2014 1:10 pm

cthia wrote:
ThinksMarkedly wrote:Which means I don't see any reason why those capacitors would remain charged after the wedge is brought up. A charged high-energy capacitor is a danger. Especially if it is full of plasma. Keeping them charged probably also reduces their useful life.

Ok, I take that back. I can see one reason: under battle conditions, you may want to be able to restart your wedge if it gets somehow knocked out. You don't want to wait for half an hour to trickle-charge the capacitors while trying to flee an enemy... which you aren't doing since you have no wedge in the first place. And if your ship is damaged, you may not even have all reactors running at full output or have the power distribution system at 100%, so may not be able to charge capacitors until you effect repairs.

Another reason - perhaps the main reason they are used in the first place - is for quickly available high bursts of power. Like deploying all grasers at their fastest rate of fire.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:The remaining question would be if you keep the capacitors charged while not under battle conditions. If you know you're going into battle, you can charge the capacitors ahead of time and ride the whole battle charged -- and maybe the capacitors help in charging missiles' capacitors too. But this would be a problem if battle surprises you, unless David decides that once you have the wedge up, you can extract energy from the Alpha band via the wedge and recharge the capacitors very quickly.

I've never known capacitors to be used in any system and not kept fully charged. That would be defeating the purpose of having these very expensive devices.

tlb wrote:Any system? Capacitors in an AC to DC power converter are continually cycling between charge levels as they work to smooth out the AC ripple. Earlier in another thread there was a discussion of whether missiles were kept fully charged, even in supply ships.

Obviously capacitors would not be fully charged in any device that was turned off for an extended period of time. Normally in a ship there is a reactor working at all times, because reactor startup needs plasma. In a repair dock all reactors can be shut off and the capacitors drained, because the station can supply plasma when work is finished.

I expect that the grasers and defensive lasers are fed from the capacitors, as the reactors work to keep the capacitors' charge up. So in a warship the capacitors will be charged.

Ok, I should have said any system that is turned on. It is the same for your inexpensive cable box which cannot keep the capacitors charged if it is not in use. Same for any device. The only difference is the amount of charge and the time to drain - which is all tied to cost.

Son, your mother says I have to hang you. Personally I don't think this is a capital offense. But if I don't hang you, she's gonna hang me and frankly, I'm not the one in trouble. —cthia's father. Incident in ? Axiom of Common Sense
Top
Re: What happens to all that debris?
Post by tlb   » Thu Nov 05, 2020 10:40 am

tlb
Fleet Admiral

Posts: 3854
Joined: Mon Sep 03, 2012 11:34 am

cthia wrote:I've never known capacitors to be used in any system and not kept fully charged. That would be defeating the purpose of having these very expensive devices.

tlb wrote:Any system? Capacitors in an AC to DC power converter are continually cycling between charge levels as they work to smooth out the AC ripple.

cthia wrote:Ok, I should have said any system that is turned on. It is the same for your inexpensive cable box which cannot keep the capacitors charged if it is not in use. Same for any device. The only difference is the amount of charge and the time to drain - which is all tied to cost.

The point about AC to DC conversion is that the capacitor is only briefly at full charge in the cycle, the bulk of the time it is either recharging or discharging. A saw-tooth wave circuit might never have the capacitor at full charge.
Top
Re: What happens to all that debris?
Post by ThinksMarkedly   » Thu Nov 05, 2020 4:06 pm

ThinksMarkedly
Fleet Admiral

Posts: 4105
Joined: Sat Aug 17, 2019 11:39 am

cthia wrote:You can only design black or white decision making capabilities into a reactor used aboard a warship, minus the gray areas that need to be decided by gray matter.
[cut]
The reactor will be programmed for black & white operation only!


I disagree. Software is extremely powerful these days, especially since we added AI and Machine Learning in the last decade.

Which is something that David hasn't adapted to. Software and computing in general in the Honorverse seems to not have progressed much from the early 2000s. I guess for me it's similar to what physicists feel while reading about FTL. So I disagree, but I don't think we can continue the discussion. Beyond where we go, we get into circular definitions.

BTW, most sci-fi authors haven't adjusted either, not just David. There are LOTS of "space fighters" where a pilot is required to add randomness to the fighter... but humans are not very good Random Number Generators (I remember an old "Numb3rs" episode on this). Computers can be unpredictable if you have a good RNG and you can have true RNGs by reading truly random events, like thermal noise.
Top
Re: What happens to all that debris?
Post by ThinksMarkedly   » Thu Nov 05, 2020 4:12 pm

ThinksMarkedly
Fleet Admiral

Posts: 4105
Joined: Sat Aug 17, 2019 11:39 am

cthia wrote:I've never known capacitors to be used in any system and not kept fully charged. That would be defeating the purpose of having these very expensive devices.


Interpreting "fully charged" as "in use."

The point is that you're putting time on the maintenance clock and expected lifetime of those devices. The more you use, the more frequent you must conduct maintenance and replace them. So if those are very expensive devices, you may need to "ration" their use somehow.

This applies to reactors too: a ship with 6 reactors that needs 4 for regular needs would be cycling through which ones are online at any time. It would be always in a cycle of bringing up the fifth, turn off the first and do maintenance on it. This is also why it would need 6 reactors, not 5: so that if battle conditions come unexpected, you can survive with a reactor that can't start because it's disassembled.
Top
Re: What happens to all that debris?
Post by Theemile   » Thu Nov 05, 2020 5:31 pm

Theemile
Fleet Admiral

Posts: 5060
Joined: Sat Feb 27, 2010 5:50 pm
Location: All over the Place - Now Serving Dublin, OH

ThinksMarkedly wrote:
cthia wrote:You can only design black or white decision making capabilities into a reactor used aboard a warship, minus the gray areas that need to be decided by gray matter.
[cut]
The reactor will be programmed for black & white operation only!


I disagree. Software is extremely powerful these days, especially since we added AI and Machine Learning in the last decade.

Which is something that David hasn't adapted to. Software and computing in general in the Honorverse seems to not have progressed much from the early 2000s. I guess for me it's similar to what physicists feel while reading about FTL. So I disagree, but I don't think we can continue the discussion. Beyond where we go, we get into circular definitions.




Personally I see this as a non-existant issue. The 2 comp failure ships survived (one at full battle conditions), dropped their wedges and sailed on into the darkness. One we know was chased down, the other we assume was. Neither exploded due to runaway reactors or overwhelmed power systems.

The 7 (?) ships which were hulked at Spindle died almost instantly (though NOT via comp failure), and their power systems were still partially intact despite wedge and multiple system failures from extreme battle damage leaving the ships to continue uncontrollably. However, the base power systems were still intact, though I would assume many reactors had been damaged or scrammed.

Point being, we have textev of the "main" power systems surviving "dead" ships that had violent, sudden deaths. I'm not going to say that the human element is not important, because David has said he is deliberately writing the Honorverse with the human element to make it relatable and enjoyable. However we have already seen "brilliant" systems most places in the ships that are merely guided by their human operators, not controlled by them. And the power systems - the heart of the ship, should be one of them.
******
RFC said "refitting a Beowulfan SD to Manticoran standards would be just as difficult as refitting a standard SLN SD to those standards. In other words, it would be cheaper and faster to build new ships."
Top
Re: What happens to all that debris?
Post by tlb   » Thu Nov 05, 2020 7:00 pm

tlb
Fleet Admiral

Posts: 3854
Joined: Mon Sep 03, 2012 11:34 am

cthia wrote:I've never known capacitors to be used in any system and not kept fully charged. That would be defeating the purpose of having these very expensive devices.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:Interpreting "fully charged" as "in use."

The point is that you're putting time on the maintenance clock and expected lifetime of those devices. The more you use, the more frequent you must conduct maintenance and replace them. So if those are very expensive devices, you may need to "ration" their use somehow.

This applies to reactors too: a ship with 6 reactors that needs 4 for regular needs would be cycling through which ones are online at any time. It would be always in a cycle of bringing up the fifth, turn off the first and do maintenance on it. This is also why it would need 6 reactors, not 5: so that if battle conditions come unexpected, you can survive with a reactor that can't start because it's disassembled.

If, as I believe, the energy weapons on a warship run off the main capacitors, then the main capacitors should be kept fully charged. However the question has been raised about capacitor powered missiles and drones, do they have any charge when they are in storage? Isn't it likely that they are charged when moved to the ready magazine for missiles or just prior to use for drones?

In our world, where someone could have actual experience with capacitors; there are some applications where a capacitor that is in use should be fully charged and many others where the charge level continually fluctuates (such as the AC to DC converter where the capacitor is smoothing out the AC ripples).

PS. You and Cthia are justifying the usage of an expensive item in ways that are opposed. You are saying that an expensive item needs to be periodically taken out of use to reduce wear. He is saying that such downtime is wasting the money spent. You are concerned about MTBF and he is concerned about under-utilization. It might be that mean time between failure is not of a concern to the Captain, because the maintenance at the base handles that.
Last edited by tlb on Thu Nov 05, 2020 7:02 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Top
Re: What happens to all that debris?
Post by Jonathan_S   » Thu Nov 05, 2020 7:02 pm

Jonathan_S
Fleet Admiral

Posts: 8269
Joined: Fri Jun 24, 2011 2:01 pm
Location: Virginia, USA

Theemile wrote:Personally I see this as a non-existant issue. The 2 comp failure ships survived (one at full battle conditions), dropped their wedges and sailed on into the darkness. One we know was chased down, the other we assume was. Neither exploded due to runaway reactors or overwhelmed power systems.

The 7 (?) ships which were hulked at Spindle died almost instantly (though NOT via comp failure), and their power systems were still partially intact despite wedge and multiple system failures from extreme battle damage leaving the ships to continue uncontrollably. However, the base power systems were still intact, though I would assume many reactors had been damaged or scrammed.

Point being, we have textev of the "main" power systems surviving "dead" ships that had violent, sudden deaths. I'm not going to say that the human element is not important, because David has said he is deliberately writing the Honorverse with the human element to make it relatable and enjoyable. However we have already seen "brilliant" systems most places in the ships that are merely guided by their human operators, not controlled by them. And the power systems - the heart of the ship, should be one of them.

I suspect that their are various levels of watchdog protections on the systems. Some like those monitoring for imminent catastrophic reactor failure, or immanent hyper generator failure, where milliseconds can count are empowered to trigger entirely autonomously despite their massive potential impact on the ships. (Now there are still times where human intervention is required because automated safety systems aren't immune from battle damage).

Others are allowed autonomous operation because they're doing the instant to instant operations necessary to follow through on the high level human inputs (keeping the containment fields on the reactors smooth and working)

But a bunch probably fall into a point where they alert first and give time for human operators to provide input. Like power grid damage detected in some portion of the ship - it would be safer for people there to cut the power, but it might be dangerous to the ship as a whole to power down the weapons, defenses, or sensors in that section. That should be left to a damage control operator to judge the trade-offs and time when to divert or cut power. But even for those I'd think that if no operator acknowledged or reacted to the system alert that eventual the event would pass some threshold of time and/or severity and the watchdog system would then be able to take additional action.

But, however it works, you're right that we've seen ships survive this kind of damage. So whatever mechanisms actually exist usually works to keep the ship from inflicting further catastrophic damage upon themselves.
Top
Re: What happens to all that debris?
Post by ThinksMarkedly   » Thu Nov 05, 2020 9:44 pm

ThinksMarkedly
Fleet Admiral

Posts: 4105
Joined: Sat Aug 17, 2019 11:39 am

tlb wrote:PS. You and Cthia are justifying the usage of an expensive item in ways that are opposed. You are saying that an expensive item needs to be periodically taken out of use to reduce wear. He is saying that such downtime is wasting the money spent. You are concerned about MTBF and he is concerned about under-utilization. It might be that mean time between failure is not of a concern to the Captain, because the maintenance at the base handles that.


Well, if you followed the underutilisation argument, you'd say that a ship should be firing missiles and grasers, because they're expensive to build and should be utilised!

Those aren't use-it-or-lose-it arguments. Warships are supposed to be over-engineered. Cost matters, but not at the expense of survival in battle.

Meanwhile, MTBF is statistical. Ships don't go full refit every time they dock. That means they're always sailing with hardware all along the maintenance windows. Moreover, the ship probably spends far more time away from port than in port, meaning the engineering crew has more time to do maintenance while underway than while docked. It makes sense to do maintenance during those times, to avoid downtime.

It might also not be the captain's decision. This may be a fleet-wide mandate because the beancounters do get a say. This may be engineering guidance too, as some parts may not survive a year-long deployment if they're in use 100% of the time.

Think of the older compensators (and compensators for everyone else): they were only run at 80% capacity most of the time, since above that they had increased risk of failure.
Top
Re: What happens to all that debris?
Post by cthia   » Fri Nov 06, 2020 11:02 am

cthia
Fleet Admiral

Posts: 14951
Joined: Thu Jan 23, 2014 1:10 pm

cthia wrote:You can only design black or white decision making capabilities into a reactor used aboard a warship, minus the gray areas that need to be decided by gray matter.
[cut]
The reactor will be programmed for black & white operation only!

ThinksMarkedly wrote:I disagree. Software is extremely powerful these days, especially since we added AI and Machine Learning in the last decade.

These days software has become more powerful because of the increase in computing power - faster CPUs and faster - and bigger allotments of - RAM. Not so much because of AI. Our current level of AI was always possible. But the raw computing power never was. The hardware had to catch up with the capability of software. The software designer has always had to work with limited computing power.

But I digress. You misunderstood me. Reactors "should" only be programmed in black&white, ultimately. Certain responsibilities should not fall upon the head of a computer program. It just shouldn't. Try explaining to Honor in the middle of a battle that the computer decided to cut power to the grasers.

I'm not saying that computers don't play a huge role in a reactor's design. They do. But it is more of a passive role by design, necessity, and common sense. It reminds me of the discussion "Should we take warm bodies out of our silos and leave launch decisions up to silly-cone diodes?" Or, would you really feel cozy in your bed at night knowing our nuclear power plants are completely automated? Computers are pretty busy monitoring all the affairs of the ship and the reactors. They are keeping track of surges, burnouts, blown junctions and power consumption and a host of other unmentionables and sending text messages to damage control, who alerts the Captain about damaged systems and when or if and what to take offline that isn't offline. Those are the decisions of the Captain, perhaps after being recommended by the engineer when possible. But never made by the reactor. Except in severe cases where "Warning! Imminent failure of fusion bottles. Core ejection countdown initiated."

ThinksMarkedly wrote:Which is something that David hasn't adapted to. Software and computing in general in the Honorverse seems to not have progressed much from the early 2000s. I guess for me it's similar to what physicists feel while reading about FTL. So I disagree, but I don't think we can continue the discussion. Beyond where we go, we get into circular definitions.

I disagree with your disagreement. All in all, I think David has done a fine job of incorporating computers into storyline. Do consider the massive computational prowess of a system that can simultaneously handle the hellish number of missiles tossed around at close to the speed of light. Point defense alone simply has to be supported by staggering processing power.

BTW, we humans keep cheating the wall that is preventing unlimited processing power, limited by the inherent limitations of our production techniques. Will quantum computing bail us out? At any rate, David has already "humored" us in that area alone.

I think what you are alluding to is a lack of breakthroughs in AI in the HV. That is an area best steered clear of by the the author. It will eat into his handwavium reserves. I've posted a countless number of times about the ultimate limitation of artificial intelligence ...

All roads will end at the Entscheidungsproblem and Gödel's Incompleteness theorems and that darn halting problem.

True AI will not be realized by raw processing power. Ultimately, the limitations of AI will not be solved by brute force computing power. Which the HV doesn't seem to have a shortage of.

.
Last edited by cthia on Fri Nov 06, 2020 2:41 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Son, your mother says I have to hang you. Personally I don't think this is a capital offense. But if I don't hang you, she's gonna hang me and frankly, I'm not the one in trouble. —cthia's father. Incident in ? Axiom of Common Sense
Top

Return to Honorverse