SLN, and MAlign playing catch up with Manticoran superiority

Theemile wrote:Let not forget, the only way you can hide an emergence translation is via light months of transition (at very low velocities). (Light weeks in a 2nd tier system, light days in a 3rd tier). So, in a major system, an opponent warship would need to perform an OB type maneuver to hide it's translation, and be out of pocket for MONTHS at a time. For a single use, sure, for normal manuevers, this ties units up for multiple months incommunicado, and makes for an inflexible fleet.

And as I've said before time and time again, this must mean here are capabilities and missions that we haven't explored yet. This can't be the only thing LDs can do.

You don't even need an LD for that!

tlb wrote:So I see where the author is saying that waste heat can be minimized, but I do not see where he is saying that waste heat can be stored for any length of time.

Indeed he makes no mention of heat sinks. Maybe the technology just isn't there for it, with the amount of heat generated.

But the explanation is not contradictory to them. A heat sink has a limited heat capacity. You need to "charge" them by cooling them before the need, then you dump heat into them during the moments you cannot afford to radiate anything. But once they reach the limit of how much heat they can store, the ship needs to dissipate again.

Why would MANS Apparition not use it when the GSN cruisers were nearby? Maybe it could use heatsinks, but the problem is that those drones are themselves extremely stealthy, so Apparition wouldn't know where they are and thus when they had moved on so it could restart emissions. Or when it had to stop.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:

Theemile wrote:Let not forget, the only way you can hide an emergence translation is via light months of transition (at very low velocities). (Light weeks in a 2nd tier system, light days in a 3rd tier). So, in a major system, an opponent warship would need to perform an OB type maneuver to hide it's translation, and be out of pocket for MONTHS at a time. For a single use, sure, for normal manuevers, this ties units up for multiple months incommunicado, and makes for an inflexible fleet.

And as I've said before time and time again, this must mean here are capabilities and missions that we haven't explored yet. This can't be the only thing LDs can do.

You don't even need an LD for that!

Exactly.

But any hyperspace translation closer is detectible. In which case, you may not know where a stealth ship is, or if it's still there, but you know one arrived into your system and you need to be careful and on the alert. In which case, you would deploy more sensors, keep wedges up, increase patrol tempos, etc.

Which is not to say you can't be caught with your pants down, but it's not as if the front door is wide open either.

tlb wrote:So I see where the author is saying that waste heat can be minimized, but I do not see where he is saying that waste heat can be stored for any length of time.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:Indeed he makes no mention of heat sinks. Maybe the technology just isn't there for it, with the amount of heat generated.

But the explanation is not contradictory to them. A heat sink has a limited heat capacity. You need to "charge" them by cooling them before the need, then you dump heat into them during the moments you cannot afford to radiate anything. But once they reach the limit of how much heat they can store, the ship needs to dissipate again.

Why would MANS Apparition not use it when the GSN cruisers were nearby? Maybe it could use heatsinks, but the problem is that those drones are themselves extremely stealthy, so Apparition wouldn't know where they are and thus when they had moved on so it could restart emissions. Or when it had to stop.

What we call "heat sinks" today are just black body heat radiators. You could say that a refrigerator "stores" cold, but it does that by creating heat elsewhere. Everything we have today (more complicated than a black body radiator) that moves heat from one place to another works by creating even more heat.

One possible way to minimize waste heat might be to use it to create plasma to be be stored in a capacitor, with any heat generated by the process also helping to create plasma - the way that heat created by a heat pump trying to warm a house could be added to that house.

The amount of heat that a fusion reactor produces must be enormous. The only way that I can see to avoid that for a period is to turn the reactor off and run on stored energy capacitors.

tlb wrote:

tlb wrote:So I see where the author is saying that waste heat can be minimized, but I do not see where he is saying that waste heat can be stored for any length of time.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:Indeed he makes no mention of heat sinks. Maybe the technology just isn't there for it, with the amount of heat generated.

But the explanation is not contradictory to them. A heat sink has a limited heat capacity. You need to "charge" them by cooling them before the need, then you dump heat into them during the moments you cannot afford to radiate anything. But once they reach the limit of how much heat they can store, the ship needs to dissipate again.

Why would MANS Apparition not use it when the GSN cruisers were nearby? Maybe it could use heatsinks, but the problem is that those drones are themselves extremely stealthy, so Apparition wouldn't know where they are and thus when they had moved on so it could restart emissions. Or when it had to stop.

What we call "heat sinks" today are just black body heat radiators. You could say that a refrigerator "stores" cold, but it does that by creating heat elsewhere. Everything we have today (more complicated than a black body radiator) that moves heat from one place to another works by creating even more heat.

One possible way to minimize waste heat might be to use it to create plasma to be be stored in a capacitor, with any heat generated by the process also helping to create plasma - the way that heat created by a heat pump trying to warm a house could be added to that house.

The amount of heat that a fusion reactor produces must be enormous. The only way that I can see to avoid that for a period is to turn the reactor off and run on stored energy capacitors.

A very interesting notion. I stated some time ago that we must caution ourselves assuming that an LD even creates as much waste heat as a traditional warship, since it spends much of its time nestling inside a web. Perhaps it needs a breakthrough in restarting the reactor, certainly a breakthrough in that department wouldn't hurt. But even when the reactor is online, who says that an LD needs it to be anywhere near full power most of the time.

penny wrote:A very interesting notion. I stated some time ago that we must caution ourselves assuming that an LD even creates as much waste heat as a traditional warship, since it spends much of its time nestling inside a web. Perhaps it needs a breakthrough in restarting the reactor, certainly a breakthrough in that department wouldn't hurt. But even when the reactor is online, who says that an LD needs it to be anywhere near full power most of the time.

Though it should need more energy, and thus create more heat, while accelerating.

Unlike the wedge (which gets much of the energy needed to accelerate the ship via the siphon effect from hyperspace) the spider drive ship would need to generate every watt of power needed to accelerate the ship -- which far more than offsets any power savings from its lower acceleration rates.


It may be able to turn off its reactor while coasting ballistically -- I can't see that being possible while it's making any meaningful acceleration.

Jonathan_S wrote:

penny wrote:A very interesting notion. I stated some time ago that we must caution ourselves assuming that an LD even creates as much waste heat as a traditional warship, since it spends much of its time nestling inside a web. Perhaps it needs a breakthrough in restarting the reactor, certainly a breakthrough in that department wouldn't hurt. But even when the reactor is online, who says that an LD needs it to be anywhere near full power most of the time.

Though it should need more energy, and thus create more heat, while accelerating.

Unlike the wedge (which gets much of the energy needed to accelerate the ship via the siphon effect from hyperspace) the spider drive ship would need to generate every watt of power needed to accelerate the ship -- which far more than offsets any power savings from its lower acceleration rates.


It may be able to turn off its reactor while coasting ballistically -- I can't see that being possible while it's making any meaningful acceleration.

I can agree with that, for the most part. Except whereby the Spider is crawling ever so slowly to its spot. A spider is very careful, patient and methodical in its movement and that kind of movement might not require a reactor's power at all. I agree that maximum and or emergency acceleration certainly should. But do we know for certain that a spider drive's power requirements do not vary with its acceleration? At any rate, I would not attribute the long-legged crawling of a spider to be akin to any form of acceleration.

tlb wrote:
The amount of heat that a fusion reactor produces must be enormous. The only way that I can see to avoid that for a period is to turn the reactor off and run on stored energy capacitors.

You’ll remember that RMN recon drones can’t restart their reactors, so they stealthily cruise around glowing red against the 4 Kelvin background, but nobody notices them because?

Why are an LDs tractors not visible? Shouldn't tractors normally be visible? IINM, an LDs tractors grab at the Alpha wall, but why wouldn't they be visible?

And, is it possible that waste heat is expelled into the alpha wall, via some function of the tractors as they are grabbing at the alpha wall? As I understand it, waste heat is radiated away from the LD in a straight line. If that capability is true (though it challenges the laws of thermodynamics, I can swallow that issue because in some form or fashion it might be managing to "side-step" that problem) then is it possible that the LD can radiate waste heat into the alpha wall as it grabs it? IINM that an LDs tractors actually grab into the alpha wall.

penny wrote:Why are an LDs tractors not visible? Shouldn't tractors normally be visible? IINM, an LDs tractors grab at the Alpha wall, but why wouldn't they be visible?

And, is it possible that waste heat is expelled into the alpha wall, via some function of the tractors as they are grabbing at the alpha wall? As I understand it, waste heat is radiated away from the LD in a straight line. If that capability is true (though it challenges the laws of thermodynamics, I can swallow that issue because in some form or fashion it might be managing to "side-step" that problem) then is it possible that the LD can radiate waste heat into the alpha wall as it grabs it? IINM that an LDs tractors actually grab into the alpha wall.

Where was it stated that any tractors were visible?

To the best of my knowledge, that has never been stated.