What happens to all that debris?

ThinksMarkedly wrote:They should all detonate ASAP, before the target system can get ships to investigate all the sensor ghosts and possibly recover pieces of the torpedo.

You also don't want the target system's defenders to even know they have very low acceleration. That's a datum that right now the GA doesn't have and -- as we've seen in the other threads -- makes their tactical decisions much worse.

I think we are still talking about system defense G-torps, so they are part of "target system's defenders". The point being that torpedoes which did not find a target should live to fight another time.

If any torpedo that is trying to return for reuse, is approached by a ship without the proper authentication; then it has a target of opportunity.

tlb wrote:I think we are still talking about system defense G-torps, so they are part of "target system's defenders". The point being that torpedoes which did not find a target should live to fight another time.

If any torpedo that is trying to return for reuse, is approached by a ship without the proper authentication; then it has a target of opportunity.

I thought we were talking about attacking warheads. Defence units can remain, even regular missiles. If you're not around to recover them, you've got bigger problems than some unexploded ordnance.

When Honor shot up the SLN reserve fleet somewhere near Jupiter -which we seem to think was primarily SDs in various conditions from really old ships to newer that were upgraded in that last round of fleet modernization though were wither in process or just left in storage as they were not needed because of the numbers still in service. So the GA launches "a lot" of missiles at a very large collection of SDs in essentially parking orbits (relative to something) and without any true active defenses except perhaps particle screening (if that) against minor system debris. So if you target each SD with ONE MDM equipped with a laser head, get really close and put every laser from that laser head into the sitting duck (perhaps only enough power running to blow air around and mooring lights etc) and unprotected SD.
With Capital Ship missile laser heads, you are going to get, what, 4 or 5 hits on an effectively stationary and unsheild ship with no defenses up? Close engagement, like right on top of the SD, point blank range for laser head. Burn right though armor in perhaps 4 places, explosive decompression and cascading damage from energy flux inside the ship from the lasers boiling off metal/armor whatever. Environmental systems severely damaged, any hit on reactors (particularly if one is running) creating at least massive power surge if not loss of containment. NO damage control party onboard- these are in storage for the most part- and even if the damage control sensors are engaged there is nobody to fix anything or start fighting fires or control leaks or shut down stuff that is damaged and possibly overloading.
Then there is the change in orbit. If the ship does have air pressure, it's going to lose a lot of it unless (or even if) the environmental systems shut down such lines as sensors determine are ruptured. Then there is the outgassing of plasma from the effects of the laser heads, and of things being blown out/off the ship. So your nice stable parking orbit goes to hell ---either quickly or slowly and the ship and probably pieces of it are going to be moving- you go figure velocities and I don't think SLN had really anybody there to try and attach a tug or anything to stabilize more than a couple of ships. And if the damage is catastrophic but less than vaporized by reactor containment loss- well there are going to be pieces of SD flying about in all sorts of directions. The book said something like most or almost all the ships in the reserve fleet suffered missile hits. That is a lot of metal that has at least some energy applied to bits and pieces of it and become at least an expanding cloud of SD debris .
I think SLN is going to have it's hands full (given that they don't have any SLN ships in system anymore) just keeping entire SDs or pieces there of away from the planets in the Sol system, let along wrangle a lot of it into some situation where it can be collected later for reclamation.

If the Alignment wants to ambush a convoy there are a couple of things they could try using the G-torps. Most shipping leaves going out along the elilptic- shortest time to hyper limit- and arrives calculated to be on the elliptic of a system- same reasoning. Pirates are usually discussed as waiting just inside the hyper limit on the elliptic to catch freighters.
So, sneak your spider dive warship next to a system and deploy a suitable number of G-torps relative to the system where shipping will normally arrive relative to the habitual planet(s) or orbital infrastructure and and lurk invisibly. A target shows up, (or the next ship that comes in-does it make a difference, this is the Alignment) and the G-torp within range goes after it. Boom. Same for ships leaving the system. If the local system government/military is sending out military shipping in non-standard directions to the hyper limit, well you just shift your spider drive ship over near what they seem to be using and deploy.....if for convoys then deploy a bunch alike a minefield that is mutually supporting and go after several ships at the same time. Your G-torps are either between the targets and the hyper limit or between the hyper limit and the current least-time location to cross over and head for your destination.

Again, this is the Alignment, not pirates. The order of the day is typically wholesale slaughter and destruction, not stealing ships and goods. Create havoc and blame somebody else....anybody else.

Brigade XO wrote:If the Alignment wants to ambush a convoy there are a couple of things they could try using the G-torps. Most shipping leaves going out along the elilptic- shortest time to hyper limit- and arrives calculated to be on the elliptic of a system- same reasoning. Pirates are usually discussed as waiting just inside the hyper limit on the elliptic to catch freighters.

You mean the ecliptic. Planetary orbits are usually elliptic, but the hyperlimit appears to be perfectly spherical.

So, sneak your spider dive warship next to a system and deploy a suitable number of G-torps relative to the system where shipping will normally arrive relative to the habitual planet(s) or orbital infrastructure and and lurk invisibly. A target shows up, (or the next ship that comes in-does it make a difference, this is the Alignment) and the G-torp within range goes after it. Boom. Same for ships leaving the system. If the local system government/military is sending out military shipping in non-standard directions to the hyper limit, well you just shift your spider drive ship over near what they seem to be using and deploy.....if for convoys then deploy a bunch alike a minefield that is mutually supporting and go after several ships at the same time. Your G-torps are either between the targets and the hyper limit or between the hyper limit and the current least-time location to cross over and head for your destination.

The g-torp is not going to be able to accelerate to catch anything leaving outside the surroundings of the least-time-course in time to catch the target. It will also not activate its spider that close to sensors installations: we're told the power spike is detectable. Therefore, it's restricted to what is coming towards it.

That strategy could work, but only once for ships leaving the system, because the second time they won't leave by that location. And if the system has any defenders, they'll be sent to scan the surroundings and will find any torpedoes that didn't leave.

That means this is a low-return strategy. The torpedo cannot afford to let too many targets pass it: every time it does not attack something that flew close by, it's a chance that the ship will report "something funky in the sensors" to the local defenders.

On a high-traffic system, the window of opportunity is very small (too many ships could spot it, there are likely local defenders). On low-traffic systems, especially those with outdated defenders, the targets are going to be uninteresting.

Again, this is the Alignment, not pirates. The order of the day is typically wholesale slaughter and destruction, not stealing ships and goods. Create havoc and blame somebody else....anybody else.

True, except for the part of "blame somebody else." That boat sailed with Simões.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:Right. A gtorp coming at anything above 0.1c can't turn fast enough to throw itself into the star in the 10 light-minutes from the missed target and putting the star in its rear-view mirrors...er.. rear-facing sensors. Unless the attack was planned from an point such that the star directly ahead of the target when it struck, which seems to be like poor planning.

It doesn't need to blow itself up until it is out of energy. Given that it seems like it can run off a shuttle reactor this will be a long time.

If there is active combat then self-destructing themselves by blowing up real good is fine. If you just have a few tossed into the system to look for targets and six months or a year later they haven't manage to find one then flying themselves in to the sun or a lonely gas giant makes a lot more sense.

zuluwiz wrote:It would seem to me that all that debris from the destruction of the Solarian Reserve Fleet in Sol System would start to collect in clumps and the various clumps would start to move together. Over time the superclumps would become smaller and denser as their gravity pulled them into a rounded shape. The collisions of pieces would generate heat which would eventually cause the clumps to melt, forming a new satellite. Which planet would draw the new body into its orbit is not yet clear, but Jupiter would seem a likely choice. After a few thousand years, the new system body would likely cool enough for metals mining to commence.

The debris would be flying apart at far above the self-gravity of the mass involved. No clumping. Depending on the velocity Jupiter might end up with something of a ring, though.

tlb wrote:That seems unlikely to me: first because the explosions that created the debris would impart diverging velocities that should prevent them from clumping, second because the gravitational pull between the pieces is minuscule compared to other gravitation objects in the system and any substantial sized piece will be manually treated as a hazard to navigation.

Another thought on this:

Nothing can orbit the ISS--because the largest remotely stable orbit is inside the station. The debris around Jupiter will have the same problem--even if it had been imparted with no velocity at all Jupiter's gravity will dominate.

Brigade XO wrote:When Honor shot up the SLN reserve fleet somewhere near Jupiter -which we seem to think was primarily SDs in various conditions from really old ships to newer that were upgraded in that last round of fleet modernization though were wither in process or just left in storage as they were not needed because of the numbers still in service. So the GA launches "a lot" of missiles at a very large collection of SDs in essentially parking orbits (relative to something) and without any true active defenses except perhaps particle screening (if that) against minor system debris. So if you target each SD with ONE MDM equipped with a laser head, get really close and put every laser from that laser head into the sitting duck (perhaps only enough power running to blow air around and mooring lights etc) and unprotected SD.
With Capital Ship missile laser heads, you are going to get, what, 4 or 5 hits on an effectively stationary and unsheild ship with no defenses up? Close engagement, like right on top of the SD, point blank range for laser head. Burn right though armor in perhaps 4 places, explosive decompression and cascading damage from energy flux inside the ship from the lasers boiling off metal/armor whatever. Environmental systems severely damaged, any hit on reactors (particularly if one is running) creating at least massive power surge if not loss of containment. NO damage control party onboard- these are in storage for the most part- and even if the damage control sensors are engaged there is nobody to fix anything or start fighting fires or control leaks or shut down stuff that is damaged and possibly overloading.
Then there is the change in orbit. If the ship does have air pressure, it's going to lose a lot of it unless (or even if) the environmental systems shut down such lines as sensors determine are ruptured. Then there is the outgassing of plasma from the effects of the laser heads, and of things being blown out/off the ship. So your nice stable parking orbit goes to hell ---either quickly or slowly and the ship and probably pieces of it are going to be moving- you go figure velocities and I don't think SLN had really anybody there to try and attach a tug or anything to stabilize more than a couple of ships. And if the damage is catastrophic but less than vaporized by reactor containment loss- well there are going to be pieces of SD flying about in all sorts of directions. The book said something like most or almost all the ships in the reserve fleet suffered missile hits. That is a lot of metal that has at least some energy applied to bits and pieces of it and become at least an expanding cloud of SD debris .
I think SLN is going to have it's hands full (given that they don't have any SLN ships in system anymore) just keeping entire SDs or pieces there of away from the planets in the Sol system, let along wrangle a lot of it into some situation where it can be collected later for reclamation.

Unfortunately, cold, empty ships don't explode when hit by laser head lasers - all you do is blow holes in the ships (which might be a bit explosive in it's own right, but not that much so).

Better would be launching the missiles in Boom mode - skin contact nuclear fire. with no sidewalls and defenses to stop them, target each ship in the Reserve with 2-4 missiles and let the 100 Mton nukes claw apart each ship.

Theemile wrote:Unfortunately, cold, empty ships don't explode when hit by laser head lasers - all you do is blow holes in the ships (which might be a bit explosive in it's own right, but not that much so).

Right. If the problem is explosive decompression, why would those ships be kept pressurised in the first place? No seal is perfectly airtight, so ships in the reserve would be constantly leaking air to space. The more volume you're trying to keep pressurised and the bigger the leak will be, so the bigger the maintenance need to keep up. I'd expect ships to have only a handful of sensitive compartments kept pressurised and warm, not the entire ship.

The reactors on those ships are cold too, with the hydrogen and helium removed. Those escape much more easily than oxygen and nitrogen, due to the small molecule and atom sizes. Though replenishing H and He are probably easier in Jupiter orbit than O and N: you have a gas giant nearby to get all the fuel you need.

And there are definitely no explosive warheads aboard ship. Not that the HV seems to use explosive compounds in the first place -- I mean, a single photon torpedo with its antimatter payload could wreck someone's day, but those don't exist in the HV.

So what can blow when a missile fires at it? The only thing we're told could actually explode is the ship's hull itself. The x-ray laserheads are designed so the thin beam will cause the material to transition from solid to plasma and cause catastrophic damage in the process of expansion and cooling down.

As for a boom nuke... how good is that in a vacuum against an unoccupied ship? So it'll be unsafe for occupation except if you want to glow in the dark and the sensitive equipment may be scrambled, but the ship itself should mostly survive, shouldn't it?

PS: "sublimation" is the transition from solid to gas, without going through the liquid phase. What do we call the transition from solid directly to plasma, without going through liquid and gas phases?