Stuck in hyper space

drothgery wrote:The CD.zip and ISO.zip links work (or at least something big starts downloading when I click on them). You can't go straight to the individual books, though.

Edit: The iso.zip link definitely works as of today (2014-06-02)

Lord Skimper wrote:That is funny, I have read all the books but I don't have them handy, they are in storage.

Lord Skimper wrote:That is funny, I have read all the books but I don't have them handy, they are in storage.

So which wedge node geometry does hyperspace support? Alpha, Beta and Missile? Just Alpha? We know that Alpha nodes work as freighters only have Alpha nodes. Beta nodes do not require the geometry of Alpha nodes which suggests they may not work in hyperspace. One wonders if missile nodes are of a geometry similar to Alpha nodes.

If beta nodes do work one could use a CLAC and deploy LAC in hyperspace. Could make for interesting ambushes etc...

The E wrote:

So which wedge node geometry does hyperspace support? Alpha, Beta and Missile? Just Alpha? We know that Alpha nodes work as freighters only have Alpha nodes. Beta nodes do not require the geometry of Alpha nodes which suggests they may not work in hyperspace. One wonders if missile nodes are of a geometry similar to Alpha nodes.

See, this right here for example. First, Freighters do have alpha and beta nodes. There is no mention in the text of a ship design that has only alpha nodes.

Both alpha and beta nodes work equally well in real-space and hyperspace, with the caveats that outside of a grav wave, alpha nodes do jack shit (Because their only purpose is to generate a W-sail, and W-sails don't work outside a grav wave), and firing up an impeller wedge inside a grav wave will kill you instantly.

Jonathan_S wrote:Eh, I hate to have to correct you, but alpha nodes are capable of generating a wedge or a sail.

So outside a grav wave the alpha nodes contributed to the impeller wedge; doing more than just "jack shit" .


And, while I can't find it offhand, I swear there was a passing mention that some freighter designs did use a pure Alpha node configuration, but almost all included beta nodes for drive redundancy. The closest I was able to find was in Timothy Zahn's short story 'An Act of War' (IFF) which included the quote "And since a typical freighter didn’t have any beta nodes" which I think is an overstatement (since, for example, the Solarian designed Dromedary-class freighter from SoS had beta nodes).

(1) The Warshawski sails have to be located a critical distance in from the ends of the vessel in question in order to provide mobility and maneuverability in a gravity wave;

(2) An impeller wedge can be generated by a single set of impeller nodes;

(3) A starship requires two sets of alpha nodes (located in the proper relative geometry) to generate Warshawski sails;

(4) A hyper-capable warship, which requires two rings of alpha nodes, also mounts two complete sets of beta nodes because it's generating a double impeller wedge, one inside the other, as a defense against hostile sensors which manage to analyze the grav differential of the outer wedge to be and also for redundancy's sake;

[deleted section]

(7) It is the beta nodes and the generation of the impeller wedge which require the reduction in cross-section were the ring is mounted.

SWM wrote:I suspect Timothy Zahn got it wrong. Other text and infodumps strongly imply that alpha nodes cannot create an impeller wedge.

SWM wrote:

Jonathan_S wrote:Eh, I hate to have to correct you, but alpha nodes are capable of generating a wedge or a sail.

So outside a grav wave the alpha nodes contributed to the impeller wedge; doing more than just "jack shit" .


And, while I can't find it offhand, I swear there was a passing mention that some freighter designs did use a pure Alpha node configuration, but almost all included beta nodes for drive redundancy. The closest I was able to find was in Timothy Zahn's short story 'An Act of War' (IFF) which included the quote "And since a typical freighter didn’t have any beta nodes" which I think is an overstatement (since, for example, the Solarian designed Dromedary-class freighter from SoS had beta nodes).

I suspect Timothy Zahn got it wrong. Other text and infodumps strongly imply that alpha nodes cannot create an impeller wedge.

More Than Honor: The Universe of Honor Harrington wrote:Dr. Warshawski had penetrated far more deeply into the nature of the grav wave phenomenon than any of her predecessors, and she suddenly realized that it would be possible to build an impeller drive which could be reconfigured at will to project its grav waves at right angles to the generating vessel.
[snip]
In effect, the alterations she made to Fleetwing to produce her "alpha nodes" provided the ship with gigantic, immaterial sails: circular, plate-like gravity bands over two hundred kilometers in diameter

TheMonster wrote:

SWM wrote:I suspect Timothy Zahn got it wrong. Other text and infodumps strongly imply that alpha nodes cannot create an impeller wedge.

I've always understood the distinction to be that beta nodes can't contribute to a sail, but Alpha nodes can contribute to a wedge. The Alpha nodes themselves would not be sufficient to produce a wedge by themselves, which is why Beta or Beta-Squared nodes are also required (only half as many of the latter).

It may even be possible for the Alpha nodes themselves to fully power a wedge, but at the cost of putting a lot of wear on them that nobody wants to have, so SOP is to let the Betas do as much as possible because they're cheaper.

If Alpha nodes really couldn't contribute to wedges, then (on warships) they'd be mounted on rams and run out only when needed to mount a sail, and retracted with armored doors closed over them when not needed, just to protect the precious things against getting hit in battle.