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Spider drive ships and technical limitations

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Re: Spider drive ships and technical limitations
Post by Vince   » Sat Nov 10, 2018 11:01 pm

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cthia wrote:
Jonathan_S wrote:snip

1) When a freighter jumps into hyper it's going to be 10 minutes or so before they could possible jump back out (hyper generator need to recharge).


Isn't exiting hyper simply a downward transition? And downward transitions from band to band need no recharging?

Yes. Honor's convoy of merchantmen freighters and the escorts transiting downward from the delta band of hyperspace:
The Honor of the Queen, Chapter 5 wrote:Hyper space’s rippling energy fluxes and flurries of charged particles hashed any sensor beyond a twenty-light-minute radius, but the convoy’s clustered light codes were clear and sharp and gratifyingly tight on Honor’s maneuvering display as it approached the hyper limit of Yeltsin’s Star at a comfortable third of light-speed.
The translation from n-space to hyper was speed critical—at anything above .3 C, dimensional shear would tear a ship apart—but the reverse wasn’t true. Which didn’t make high-speed downward translations pleasant. The energy bleed as the convoy crossed each hyper wall would slow them to a crawl long before they reached the alpha bands, and shear wasn’t a factor as far as hardware was concerned, but the effect on humans was something else again. Naval crews were trained for crash translations, yet there was a limit to what training could do to offset the physical distress and violent nausea, and there was no point in putting anyone—especially her merchant crews—through that.
“Ready to begin translation in forty-one seconds, Ma’am,” Lieutenant Commander DuMorne reported from Astrogation.
“Very well, Mr. DuMorne. The con is yours.”
“Aye, aye, Ma’am. I have the con. Helm, prepare for initial translation on my mark.”
“Ready for translation, aye,” Chief Killian replied, and the helmsman’s hand hovered over the manual override, just in case the astrogator’s computers dropped the ball, while Honor leaned back to watch.
“Mark!” DuMorne said crisply, and the normally inaudible hum of Fearless’s hyper generator became a basso growl.
Honor swallowed against a sudden ripple of nausea as the visual display altered abruptly. The endlessly shifting patterns of hyper space were no longer slow; they flickered, jumping about like poorly executed animation, and her readouts flashed steadily downward as the entire convoy plummeted “down” the hyper space gradient.
Fearless hit the gamma wall, and her Warshawski sails bled transit energy like an azure forest fire. Her velocity dropped almost instantly from .3 C to a mere nine percent of light-speed, and Honor’s stomach heaved as her inner ear rebelled against a speed loss the rest of her senses couldn’t even detect. DuMorne’s calculations had allowed for the energy bleed, and their translation gradient steepened even further as their velocity fell. They hit the beta wall four minutes later, and Honor winced again—less violently this time—as their velocity bled down to less than two percent of light-speed. The visual display was a fierce chaos of heaving light as the convoy fell straight “down” across a “distance” which had no physical existence, and then they hit the alpha bands and flashed across them to the n-space wall like a comet.
Her readouts stopped blinking. The visual display was suddenly still, filled once more with the unwinking pinpricks of normal-space stars, the sense of nausea faded almost as quickly as it had come, and HMS Fearless’s velocity had dropped in less than ten minutes from ninety thousand kilometers per second to a bare hundred and forty.
Italics are the author's, boldface is my emphasis.
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History does not repeat itself so much as it echoes.
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Re: Spider drive ships and technical limitations
Post by Jonathan_S   » Sun Nov 11, 2018 1:56 am

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cthia wrote:
Isn't exiting hyper simply a downward transition? And downward transitions from band to band need no recharging?
Yep, that why I specifically mentioned the example of that which Vince was nice enough to quote. Wondering if ktz's assumption was correct - since a continuous climb would (as pointed out later in my post) renders that proposed pirate tactic much less effective.


Incidentally I'm assuming you still need to charge the hyper generator up to full power and then wait out the transition activation delay to start the transition but you can clearly drop through intervening bands to normal space without pause. By extension I'd assume you can also drop down a less arbitrary number of bands without pause.

But it's possible, though IMHO unlikely, that climbing bands is different and you that would for some reason need to pause and charge before cracking each successively higher wall.
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Re: Spider drive ships and technical limitations
Post by kzt   » Sun Nov 11, 2018 2:42 am

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I’ll point out that the hyperlimit on 4 bands up is really, really tiny. Like entirely in energy range...
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Re: Spider drive ships and technical limitations
Post by Galactic Sapper   » Sun Nov 11, 2018 12:20 pm

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Jonathan_S wrote:2) If we assume the 62:1 compression of the Alpha bands:Normal space is uniform that turns a 44 light minute diameter hyper limit (like Manticores) into just a 42.6 light seconds area in the Alpha bands - so a ship sitting in the middle should be able to see any upward transition and rapidly engage with energy weapons (even given the crappy sensor conditions)

Again, even against a target without sidewalls energy range is only 2-3 light seconds, far less than 42.6 light seconds.

Your energy range would only cover at most 1/15th of the possible translation zone (assuming the ship translated on the limit at the system ecliptic), and your target is guaranteed to be moving away from you at higher velocity than you have.

Also, look at the examples we have: translating up takes longer than translating down. It makes sense that a greater energy demand is needed to shift to a band with higher energy and less energy is needed to shift to a band with less energy. Thus the time needed for a second shift downward is less than what would be required to make a second shift up. Also why some battlecruisers could shift down and be stuck needing to charge before shifting back up. If there'd been another band further down for them to shift to they might have survived.

If this is true, a merchant ship jumped shortly after transitioning up could shift back down as an evasion tactic - they'd have a minimal recharge time compared to shifting further up.

This last part is head canon on my part, but I always envisioned the delay shifting down as the hyper limit of the star in the beta band being larger than it is in the alpha band, the gamma hyper limit being larger than the beta, etc. So an incoming ship hits the gamma limit, translates down, loses speed but builds a bit more as they move inward toward the beta limit, where they translate again, lose energy, and move on until reaching the alpha hyper limit, where they translate out into normal space. Going out doesn't matter as much since the time moving from one limit to the next takes less time than the hyper generator takes to cycle.
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Re: Spider drive ships and technical limitations
Post by kzt   » Sun Nov 11, 2018 1:56 pm

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On gamma, where the merchant will stop their climb (while also moving at 0.09% of their real space velocity) the compression is 2178:1. Which means the far side of the hyperlimit is 1.2 light seconds away.
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Re: Spider drive ships and technical limitations
Post by Galactic Sapper   » Sun Nov 11, 2018 2:42 pm

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kzt wrote:On gamma, where the merchant will stop their climb (while also moving at 0.09% of their real space velocity) the compression is 2178:1. Which means the far side of the hyperlimit is 1.2 light seconds away.

There's either something not right with your math or something in the hyperspace canon being overlooked. If visibility in hyper was so good tactics like Solon would not work - the Havenites would have seen the second task force waiting in hyper. Or the Manties would have seen the Havenites in ambush at Lorn.
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Re: Spider drive ships and technical limitations
Post by Jonathan_S   » Sun Nov 11, 2018 4:35 pm

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Galactic Sapper wrote:
Jonathan_S wrote:2) If we assume the 62:1 compression of the Alpha bands:Normal space is uniform that turns a 44 light minute diameter hyper limit (like Manticores) into just a 42.6 light seconds area in the Alpha bands - so a ship sitting in the middle should be able to see any upward transition and rapidly engage with energy weapons (even given the crappy sensor conditions)

Again, even against a target without sidewalls energy range is only 2-3 light seconds, far less than 42.6 light seconds.

Your energy range would only cover at most 1/15th of the possible translation zone (assuming the ship translated on the limit at the system ecliptic), and your target is guaranteed to be moving away from you at higher velocity than you have.
They'll be moving faster, but not all that[/i[fast.
Still I don't think this is a practical method of hunting for prizes.

But still, remember that crossing the Alpha wall (in either direction) entails bleeding off 92% of your velocity. The very fastest a ship could ever be moving after jumping up into Alpha is 7194 KPS. A pirate that can probably safely pull at least 415 gees (that's be CL sized) while even a small freighter is lucky to manage 170 or so (unless its a rare one with military drives). In that extreme case where a freighter worked up to 0.3c before entering hyper it would take the pirate 50 minutes to work up to their initial velocity and much longer to run them down. In that case the freighter probably would get away because it'd run out of sensor range and could alter course or switch bands.Also the merchant would also be entering hyper [i]way
past the hyper limit because it'd take ages to work up to that speed.

Much more likely would be them starting an orbit within 11 light minutes from the hyper limit and using the accel above it would take 258 minutes to cover that 11 LM and they'd have a normal space speed of just 25,690 KPS which would drop to 2,055 KPS as they cracked the wall. Given a pirate's acceleration advantage they'd work up to that in less than 15 minutes. A few more minutes and they'd being overhauling the freighter.


(Note: All this assumes the system doesn't sit in a grav wave, in which case the accel numbers would be approximately 10x higher but the relative difference should remain unchanged)
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Re: Spider drive ships and technical limitations
Post by WLBjork   » Tue Nov 20, 2018 2:30 pm

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Galactic Sapper wrote:From the text we do not know one way or the other whether spider drive ships have compensators. That was a supposition from lack of mention in the text. From later comments from RFC they probably have alpha nodes and compensators for hyper travel.


Compensators have already been covered - they aren't mounted.

Alpha nodes? Probably not.

The Spider Drive requires a triple hull in order to operate. They have three broadsides. Putting these together suggest that the ships are roughly triangular when viewed beam-on. It isn't so clear exactly how they appear, but my guess is that the points of the triangle are where the broadsides are mounted.

Now, let's look at sails (and wedges for that matter) - there is nothing between the node and the region where the sail (or wedge) is generated. Not really a surprise as there is very likely an extremely strong energy or gravitational beam in order to generate the sail or wedge in the first place which wouldn't allow anything to survive in that region.

Add to that the requirement for the nodes to be mounted in a certain geometrical relationship and I can't see Alpha Nodes being the answer.

Something new and tum-te-tum? Only time will tell.
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Re: Spider drive ships and technical limitations
Post by Galactic Sapper   » Tue Nov 20, 2018 4:19 pm

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WLBjork wrote:Compensators have already been covered - they aren't mounted.

Alpha nodes? Probably not.

The Spider Drive requires a triple hull in order to operate. They have three broadsides. Putting these together suggest that the ships are roughly triangular when viewed beam-on. It isn't so clear exactly how they appear, but my guess is that the points of the triangle are where the broadsides are mounted.

Now, let's look at sails (and wedges for that matter) - there is nothing between the node and the region where the sail (or wedge) is generated. Not really a surprise as there is very likely an extremely strong energy or gravitational beam in order to generate the sail or wedge in the first place which wouldn't allow anything to survive in that region.

Add to that the requirement for the nodes to be mounted in a certain geometrical relationship and I can't see Alpha Nodes being the answer.

Something new and tum-te-tum? Only time will tell.

RFC is Mr. Weber himself. If he has said spider drive ships have compensators and alpha nodes, they have them. We know they have alpha nodes to make them grav-wave and wormhole capable, and without a compensator they'd be incredibly slow in grav waves - limited to 200 g's when conventional merchant ships could be pulling ten times that, assuming the spider even works inside a grav wave. We know wedges don't, so it's at least possible the spider won't either.

Also, the spider ships could be triangular, but they could also be roughly cylindrical with three ridges sticking out. The drives are mounted on the points of the triangle or on the ridges, though, with the broadsides occupying the hull between those points/ridges. Several times in descriptions of spider drive ships there's reference to the triple skegs the drive projectors are mounted on, meaning those projectors are sticking out beyond the surrounding hull rather than the fairly recessed spot impeller drive nodes occupy between the main hull and the hammerheads of a traditional warship.
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Re: Spider drive ships and technical limitations
Post by Theemile   » Tue Nov 20, 2018 6:03 pm

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Galactic Sapper wrote:
WLBjork wrote:Compensators have already been covered - they aren't mounted.

Alpha nodes? Probably not.

The Spider Drive requires a triple hull in order to operate. They have three broadsides. Putting these together suggest that the ships are roughly triangular when viewed beam-on. It isn't so clear exactly how they appear, but my guess is that the points of the triangle are where the broadsides are mounted.

Now, let's look at sails (and wedges for that matter) - there is nothing between the node and the region where the sail (or wedge) is generated. Not really a surprise as there is very likely an extremely strong energy or gravitational beam in order to generate the sail or wedge in the first place which wouldn't allow anything to survive in that region.

Add to that the requirement for the nodes to be mounted in a certain geometrical relationship and I can't see Alpha Nodes being the answer.

Something new and tum-te-tum? Only time will tell.

RFC is Mr. Weber himself. If he has said spider drive ships have compensators and alpha nodes, they have them. We know they have alpha nodes to make them grav-wave and wormhole capable, and without a compensator they'd be incredibly slow in grav waves - limited to 200 g's when conventional merchant ships could be pulling ten times that, assuming the spider even works inside a grav wave. We know wedges don't, so it's at least possible the spider won't either.

Also, the spider ships could be triangular, but they could also be roughly cylindrical with three ridges sticking out. The drives are mounted on the points of the triangle or on the ridges, though, with the broadsides occupying the hull between those points/ridges. Several times in descriptions of spider drive ships there's reference to the triple skegs the drive projectors are mounted on, meaning those projectors are sticking out beyond the surrounding hull rather than the fairly recessed spot impeller drive nodes occupy between the main hull and the hammerheads of a traditional warship.


RFC has not, to my recollection, said that Spider ships have alpha nodes or Compensators. We know compensators are NOT compatible with the spider drive and grav plates are used to negate the accel in their place. We know David said, teasingly, "Who said Spider drive ships cannot use a wormhole?" Pretty much meaning that they can. We know they can travel in Hyperspace, and we know they can travel in a Grav wave, because they attacked Grayson with spider ships, who sits in the middle of one.

We can assume either the Mlign uses alpha nodes to make sails, which would be a heavy, extraneous alternative drive system, have adapted the spider to make sails in some way, or have developed a 3rd, new technology. Comps would work with #1, NOT with #2, and "who knows" with alternative #3. However, we have not been told which.

The shape of conventional honorverse ships is very much dictated by the sails, and a conical spider ship with triple symmetry and drive skegs seem to violate the Alpha sail rules completely. Unless a new technology has been discovered, an extendable structure would have to be used to get the correct geometry for the alpha nodes on a spider ship, further increasing mass and the volume necessary for what amounts to a secondary drive system.
******
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."
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