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Honorverse ramblings and musings

Join us in talking discussing all things Honor, including (but not limited to) tactics, favorite characters, and book discussions.
Re: Honorverse ramblings and musings
Post by drothgery   » Sat Jul 08, 2017 9:46 pm

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kzt wrote:
drothgery wrote:Grayson fission reactors do not generate enough power to make sense for any hyper-capable ship, not even a dispatch boat.

Hey, it's impossible for them to generate enough power to support a LAC either. A couple of hundreds liters of hydrogen has more potential energy than an entire Shrike's mass worth of pure plutonium, and I suspect that there is at least part of the LAC isn't made of radioactive isotopes.

Well, yes, but you're talking about real-world physics. I'm talking about authorial fiat (there's Word of Weber that there will be no fission-powered hyper-capable ships).
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Re: Honorverse ramblings and musings
Post by Jonathan_S   » Sun Jul 09, 2017 12:19 pm

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cthia wrote:Is there an equivalent of a streak boat "removing her safety interlocks?" :?

Presumably. And in exchange for greatly increased risk you'll get somewhat better performance.

(For simplicity I'm going to ignore acceleration time and in-system manouvering as they should be irrelevant to the variable of hyper generator safety - though Truman was probably also redlining her compensator which I should calculate as it affects total passage time)

Even so, unless acceleration has a much larger impact than I assume, I can't get the numbers to make sense for Truman's speed run back to Manticore in HotQ.

It's only 31 light-years between Manticore and Grayson so even a warship traveling sedately down in the Eta bands (2576 c) needs less than 106 hours at full speed make the hyper transit.
We're told turning off all the interlocks let the damaged light cruiser Apollo "cut thirty hours off the old passage record". But to cover that distance in even 76 hours you need 3575 c. Which is basically warship in Iota bands speed (3600 c), substantially better than we're told a warship can do in the Theta bands (3000 c).
So already seems implausible even if we assume the old passage record was made loafing around in Eta bands.


It we assume is was set in the Theta bands, where warships can go (and dispatch boats routinely utilize) the hyper passage time should be under 91 hours at full speed. Chopping that to 61 hours would require a multiplier of 4500 c; exceeding what a streak drive can do (Kappa bands - 4354 c)

So something seems is screwy in HotQ. But like I said redoing the full calc, assuming no compensator safety margin might clear that up. I'll see if I can find time with my spreadsheets to run that.
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Re: Honorverse ramblings and musings
Post by cthia   » Mon Jul 10, 2017 6:55 am

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Jonathan_S wrote:
cthia wrote:Is there an equivalent of a streak boat "removing her safety interlocks?" :?

Presumably. And in exchange for greatly increased risk you'll get somewhat better performance.

(For simplicity I'm going to ignore acceleration time and in-system manouvering as they should be irrelevant to the variable of hyper generator safety - though Truman was probably also redlining her compensator which I should calculate as it affects total passage time)

Even so, unless acceleration has a much larger impact than I assume, I can't get the numbers to make sense for Truman's speed run back to Manticore in HotQ.

It's only 31 light-years between Manticore and Grayson so even a warship traveling sedately down in the Eta bands (2576 c) needs less than 106 hours at full speed make the hyper transit.
We're told turning off all the interlocks let the damaged light cruiser Apollo "cut thirty hours off the old passage record". But to cover that distance in even 76 hours you need 3575 c. Which is basically warship in Iota bands speed (3600 c), substantially better than we're told a warship can do in the Theta bands (3000 c).
So already seems implausible even if we assume the old passage record was made loafing around in Eta bands.


It we assume is was set in the Theta bands, where warships can go (and dispatch boats routinely utilize) the hyper passage time should be under 91 hours at full speed. Chopping that to 61 hours would require a multiplier of 4500 c; exceeding what a streak drive can do (Kappa bands - 4354 c)

So something seems is screwy in HotQ. But like I said redoing the full calc, assuming no compensator safety margin might clear that up. I'll see if I can find time with my spreadsheets to run that.

Jonathan, it might not actually be a smooth and uniform acceleration across the calculation. Using Riemann approximations for areas under the curve in snapshots of acceleration through all ship starts and stops could account for the variance with respect to distance/time.

Her Δx could make a huge impact.

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
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Re: Honorverse ramblings and musings
Post by Jonathan_S   » Mon Jul 10, 2017 11:58 am

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cthia wrote:Jonathan, it might not actually be a smooth and uniform acceleration across the calculation. Using Riemann approximations for areas under the curve in snapshots of acceleration through all ship starts and stops could account for the variance with respect to distance/time.

Her Δx could make a huge impact.
Well if you graph out the velocity it'll probably look a quite sawtoothed. Wedges seem to take you to their accel setting nearly instantaneously, but even so after a boost to the hyper limit you'll suffer a huge velocity loss entering the Alpha bands and additional losses of velocity each time you climb (or drop) a hyper band. Though within the hyper limit there isn't room to get over the 0.3c limit fir entering hyper - so no need to decelerate before entering hyper.

Unless there something like a dangerous rogue grav wave only in the upper bands (which we have no mention of here) you'd expect a ship in a screaming hurry to climb to the Theta bands ASAP and then put the hammer down. At that point, even w/o grav waves a warship (450g) can reach max speed in just 11 hours from a dead stop. IIRC Grayson lies in a wave that'd drop the accel time to only 66 minute to top speed.
Then you wouldn't slow down until the crash transition to n-space, just outside Manticore's hyperlimit; which itself will bring you almost instantly to a stop again.
You would have to do a 0 0 intercept to rendzvious which take longer than a high speed pass, but by that point you've broadcast your warning and your ship's speed is way less relevant.

So thanks to velocity drops, and grav waves, the accel isn't a straight line, but given what we know if wedges each segment should be straight.
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Re: Honorverse ramblings and musings
Post by cthia   » Tue Jul 11, 2017 5:31 am

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Jonathan_S wrote:
cthia wrote:Jonathan, it might not actually be a smooth and uniform acceleration across the calculation. Using Riemann approximations for areas under the curve in snapshots of acceleration through all ship starts and stops could account for the variance with respect to distance/time.

Her Δx could make a huge impact.
Well if you graph out the velocity it'll probably look a quite sawtoothed. Wedges seem to take you to their accel setting nearly instantaneously, but even so after a boost to the hyper limit you'll suffer a huge velocity loss entering the Alpha bands and additional losses of velocity each time you climb (or drop) a hyper band. Though within the hyper limit there isn't room to get over the 0.3c limit fir entering hyper - so no need to decelerate before entering hyper.

Unless there something like a dangerous rogue grav wave only in the upper bands (which we have no mention of here) you'd expect a ship in a screaming hurry to climb to the Theta bands ASAP and then put the hammer down. At that point, even w/o grav waves a warship (450g) can reach max speed in just 11 hours from a dead stop. IIRC Grayson lies in a wave that'd drop the accel time to only 66 minute to top speed.
Then you wouldn't slow down until the crash transition to n-space, just outside Manticore's hyperlimit; which itself will bring you almost instantly to a stop again.
You would have to do a 0 0 intercept to rendzvious which take longer than a high speed pass, but by that point you've broadcast your warning and your ship's speed is way less relevant.

So thanks to velocity drops, and grav waves, the accel isn't a straight line, but given what we know if wedges each segment should be straight.


Spending more time traveling at max velocity than attaining max velocity adds up to a considerable time saving. Her Δx could enlighten standing start times (0-60 0-100). Or rather 0-Max. Posting improbable but quite real improvements over that 11 hrs. to max. In drag mode. LOL

In removing the safety interlocks, we tend to think of improvements in top speed only but fail to consider the improvements in 0-MAX. An additional area of improvement that may be purely MAlign specific. Which over time/distance translates into a considerable time saving.

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
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Re: Honorverse ramblings and musings
Post by ldwechsler   » Wed Jul 12, 2017 8:08 am

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[quote="cthia"][quote="Jonathan_S"][quote="cthia"]
Jonathan, it might not actually be a smooth and uniform acceleration across the calculation. Using Riemann approximations for areas under the curve in snapshots of acceleration through all ship starts and stops could account for the variance with respect to distance/time.





Most of what we have here is mumbo-jumbo. Gene Roddenberry once wrote that the Enterprise (on Star Trek for those who have been living in a bubble for the last 50 years) would never go so fast it could outrun its enemies. It would make a lot of plot irrelevant.

By the way, the same for transporters. If crew could be transported from anywhere at any time there was danger, no more plots.

So work it out any way you want. The author will make certain that plot requirements come first. That's why the Mesalliance has faster ships and ones that are harder to detect instead of Manticore...which has other advantages.

It goes back to the Superman problem. The writers had a problem early on: Superman would always win. The bad guys couldn't hurt him. Stories were boring. So they invented kryptonite.

We can enjoy all the tech issues but they are mostly there to advance the story.
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Re: Honorverse ramblings and musings
Post by Brigade XO   » Sat Jul 15, 2017 11:13 pm

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Superman had kryptonite and then, because it wasn't enough of a problem they invented various kinds of kryptonite than the normal green stuff. Green kryptonite would kill Superman with a sort of radiation effect but if he got far enough away from it the problem went away and the effects/damage to him were non-cumulitive. The various other colors had different effect on him and the duration was different.
Plot device.
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Re: Honorverse ramblings and musings
Post by ldwechsler   » Sun Jul 16, 2017 8:15 pm

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Brigade XO wrote:Superman had kryptonite and then, because it wasn't enough of a problem they invented various kinds of kryptonite than the normal green stuff. Green kryptonite would kill Superman with a sort of radiation effect but if he got far enough away from it the problem went away and the effects/damage to him were non-cumulitive. The various other colors had different effect on him and the duration was different.
Plot device.


And that's what all of this is about. RFC decided that LACs would not be able to go hyper. He makes the key decisions. Essentially, we wanted the LACs to be like planes with the CLACs like aircraft carriers.

Things did change a bit. But there may well be more changes in the next arc since some time will have passed.
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Re: Honorverse ramblings and musings
Post by cthia   » Mon Jul 17, 2017 4:30 pm

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This has come up in my "hmm radar" a time or three and I thought I'd take this time to comment.

SVW Chapter 30 wrote:You're right, Ma'am. They've got to be drones."

Genevieve Chin gave Commander Klim a sharp nod and turned from the master display. She stalked back to her command chair and sank into it, locking her shock frame with slow deliberation, then looked at DeSoto.

"Lay in new firing orders. They're concentrating on Waldensville; let's give them a little of their own medicine. Pick two BCs and hit them with everything we've got."

"Aye, Ma'am!" Matching hunger sharpened DeSoto's reply, and Chin smiled a thin smile. They'd been suckered and they'd taken their lumps; now it was time to hand out a few in reply.

* * *
The sudden shift in fire patterns took Sarnow's missile defense officers by surprise, and the first, concentrated salvo blew a hole through their countermissiles, sweeping into attack range of Defiant and Achilles. Defiant took only three hits, none critical, but a dozen lasers lashed at the open rear of Achilles' impeller wedge, and damage alarms screamed as five of them blasted deep into her hull.

"We've lost Graser One-Six and Laser One-Eight, Sir. Five casualties in Radar Eleven. Missile Five-Two's down, but damage control is on it."

"Acknowledged." Captain Oscar Weldon didn't even look up at his exec's report. He only looked at the flag bridge com screen and saw the same awareness in Commodore Banton's eyes. It had been only a matter of time until the Peeps concentrated their fire; now they knew who their targets would be.

Achilles shuddered as another salvo flailed at her, and the battlecruiser writhed into a fresh evasion pattern while two light cruisers closed in tighter on either flank to add their weight to her defense.
My bold.

It sort of seems to me that the XO, at the very least, should have alerted the missile defense officers of the possible tactics that may be coming. The missile defense officers may not have been able to conceive of the particular change in tactics, though the XO and Captain certainly should have.

Or perhaps the missile defense teams are expected to be that tactically savvy. Certainly the position of Tactical should be up on it if whoever is at Tactical is a Harrington, Foraker, Hearns or "Guns."

TBH, the missile defense teams may have been expected to realize that the Peeps may decide to concentrate their fire during this reengagement. In fact, that the chances would be quite high. Even while considering the good times when the Peeps seemed completely oblivious to the notion. But... all in all it seems to me to be a slip of the XO or the Captain for not broaching a cursory reminder for assurance. shrug

Much like what Honor does here with Rafe...

HotQ Ch. 34 wrote:"We should be able to run a fair plot on Saladin with our belly radar, Rafe, but tracking missiles through the grav band will be difficult."

Cardones nodded, and his face was very still. Honor saw the understanding in his eyes, but she had to say it.

"I intend to hold the belly of our wedge towards her all the way in. We don't have the ammunition to stop her with missiles, so we're going to close to pointblank range unless she shears off. Set up your fire plan on the assumption that I will roll to bring our port energy broadside to bear at twenty thousand kilometers."

Cardones simply nodded once more, but someone hissed. That wasn't energy weapon range; it was suicide range.

"She won't know exactly when we intend to roll," Honor went on in that same, calm voice. "That should give us the first shot, and at that range, it won't matter how tough her sidewalls are." She held Cardones' gaze with her single eye and spoke very softly. "I'm depending on you, Rafe. Get that first broadside on target, then keep firing, whatever happens."

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
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Re: Honorverse ramblings and musings
Post by Jonathan_S   » Tue Jul 18, 2017 8:55 am

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cthia wrote:This has come up in my "hmm radar" a time or three and I thought I'd take this time to comment.

SVW Chapter 30 wrote:You're right, Ma'am. They've got to be drones."

Genevieve Chin gave Commander Klim a sharp nod and turned from the master display. She stalked back to her command chair and sank into it, locking her shock frame with slow deliberation, then looked at DeSoto.

"Lay in new firing orders. They're concentrating on Waldensville; let's give them a little of their own medicine. Pick two BCs and hit them with everything we've got."

"Aye, Ma'am!" Matching hunger sharpened DeSoto's reply, and Chin smiled a thin smile. They'd been suckered and they'd taken their lumps; now it was time to hand out a few in reply.

* * *
The sudden shift in fire patterns took Sarnow's missile defense officers by surprise, and the first, concentrated salvo blew a hole through their countermissiles, sweeping into attack range of Defiant and Achilles. Defiant took only three hits, none critical, but a dozen lasers lashed at the open rear of Achilles' impeller wedge, and damage alarms screamed as five of them blasted deep into her hull.

"We've lost Graser One-Six and Laser One-Eight, Sir. Five casualties in Radar Eleven. Missile Five-Two's down, but damage control is on it."
My bold.

It sort of seems to me that the XO, at the very least, should have alerted the missile defense officers of the possible tactics that may be coming. The missile defense officers may not have been able to conceive of the particular change in tactics, though the XO and Captain certainly should have.

Or perhaps the missile defense teams are expected to be that tactically savvy. Certainly the position of Tactical should be up on it if whoever is at Tactical is a Harrington, Foraker, Hearns or "Guns."

TBH, the missile defense teams may have been expected to realize that the Peeps may decide to concentrate their fire during this reengagement. In fact, that the chances would be quite high. Even while considering the good times when the Peeps seemed completely oblivious to the notion. But... all in all it seems to me to be a slip of the XO or the Captain for not broaching a cursory reminder for assurance. shrug

I read that differently. I don't think it surprised anybody that the Peeps might switch to concentrated firing. But since you have to launch CMs based on where you estimate the enemy missiles will be over a minute later, and since you never know which ship(s) they might pick to concentrate on, the actual moment of targeting switch will catch you flat footed despite everyone understanding that its a common tactic to switch to concentrated fire.
(Admittedly it's less common when smashing ships much smaller/weaker than you - it wasn't until the RMN BCs showed what tough missile targets they were that the Peeps felt that the wide press targetting wasn't getting the job done)


Even at SDM ranges your CM launch needs to happen when the target missiles are as much as 4.7 million km away. (That would be absolute max if the ships were at rest relative to each other -- your CM picking them off at the very max range of 1.59 million km; 60 seconds out from your ships.[1])
But at that distance, 55% of their flight time but 30% of their flight distance its very hard to guess what ship if your formation is being targetted. Combine that with deceptive ECM and it's no big surprise that even alert to the possibility of a target shift that the first wave of CMs might be pointed the wrong way and fail to make intercept - then you've got moments to scramble as your carfully planned defensive fire plan has to scramble to deal with the unexpectedly high number of inbounds that survived your first of 2-4 CM launches.
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