SLN, and MAlign playing catch up with Manticoran superiority

penny wrote:Radiating the heat into hyper is also "away from known enemy sensors." But it could be that Apparition was not accelerating. Perhaps it was idling or coasting. If the notion is valid, it could be that a spider drive can only radiate heat into hyper while accelerating. IOW, I could be wrong in one respect, in that the spider drives actually run hotter at idle.

If they were radiating the heat into hyper then Commodore Roderick Sung wouldn't have been worried about the risk of recon "platforms" got "a good, close-range look at the aspect Apparition was keeping turned away from their mothership" -- if he's not radiating his heat that direction then there'd be nothing viewable from that aspect to change. But he know if they got that look "the chance of detection went from abysmally low to terrifyingly high"

And it's true that he was coasting along with the drive down. But if maneuvering would allow him to radiate waste heat undetectably into hyper instead then he'd be an incompetent ship handler for deciding to turn off his drive while in enemy territory. If a spider's stealth was actually better with the drive up then they should be constantly accelerating, even if only in a circle or back and forth, to prevent radiating heat into normal space.

However the text seems to indicate that chances of detection are (if only very slightly) higher with the drive active -- which (along with assuming the MAlign isn't sending incompetents to commend their ships) strongly indicates to me that the best they can do in any circumstance is to carefully manage where they aim their waste heat, and try to avoid situations where they might have no safe direction available.

penny wrote:IF a Spider's tractors are actually piercing the wall into hyperspace while it “grabs” it, and since waste heat can be directed, then perhaps waste heat is somehow directed into hyperspace.

tlb wrote:If the spider drive had that capability, then it would be used by the Ghost class ships. But in the Grayson system, Apparition was just radiating it into space like normal electro-magnetic energy. To solve the problem the text says "like other navies' stealth systems, the MAN's dealt with that by radiating that heat away from known enemy sensors".

penny wrote:Radiating the heat into hyper is also "away from known enemy sensors."

No, that would be radiating waste heat away from ALL sensors. Otherwise they would not have worried about a probe getting behind them.

Imagine that the space within the hyperspace limits of all major Grand Alliance planets is covered by a multitude of Hermes communication buoys. Now consider adding a passive sensor package to all of them, so the buoys can scan for moving heat sources that do not have a strong wedge. This could serve as a warning system for any stealthy object, from a recon drone to a graser torpedo to a Leonard Detweiler class ship. It would also see bow shock waves.

You all have a point. But since the wedge siphons energy out of hyper, I don't think it would be a slip of the pen if the author allowed an LD to radiate thermal energy into hyper.

'It was discovered that the much larger tractors of the LD allowed it to radiate heat into hyper along the very concentrated gravity tunnel produced by an LD's much larger tractor that isn't possible with smaller tractors.'

penny wrote:You all have a point. But since the wedge siphons energy out of hyper, I don't think it would be a slip of the pen if the author allowed an LD to radiate thermal energy into hyper.

'It was discovered that the much larger tractors of the LD allowed it to radiate heat into hyper along the very concentrated gravity tunnel produced by an LD's much larger tractor that isn't possible with smaller tractors.'

I suppose it is conceivable that would be some future development by the Malign, but the quote seems to make it clear that currently their ships (which are smaller than an LD) deal with waste heat the same way everyone else does.

But is it likely? Since the author is invested in seeing the Malign be defeated, why allow any Malign ship to be completely invisible?

tlb wrote:

penny wrote:You all have a point. But since the wedge siphons energy out of hyper, I don't think it would be a slip of the pen if the author allowed an LD to radiate thermal energy into hyper.

'It was discovered that the much larger tractors of the LD allowed it to radiate heat into hyper along the very concentrated gravity tunnel produced by an LD's much larger tractor that isn't possible with smaller tractors.'

I suppose it is conceivable that would be some future development by the Malign, but the quote seems to make it clear that currently their ships (which are smaller than an LD) deal with waste heat the same way everyone else does.

But is it likely? Since the author is invested in seeing the Malign be defeated, why allow any Malign ship to be completely invisible?

Is this likely? I sure hope so. Please, no more paper tigers. I hope with this enemy even the author has to hone his skills to deliver his very finest in strategy and tactics. With the LD the MA holds a significant tactical advantage. That advantage will force the GA to up their game. I have a feeling the war with the MAlign will thin the herd. Only the strong (skilled in tactics and strategy) will survive. We may finally see the meteoric rise in rank of our newly betrothed officers.

Let the HV end in a big bang. Lots of big bangs. Yeah!

I am not sure even this breakthrough in heat management will make them totally invisible. They have their limits in range, and are susceptible to drones. Targeting an LD even after a drone has discovered one still might be difficult after the drone is eliminated.

At any rate, given this improvement, the opening phases of the war should be devastating, prompting the GA to develop a spider drive detector via sensor readings from all over the galaxy.

****** *

I wonder if the exhaust heat can be released on any vector at any given time. Variably-vectored exhaust heat? I'd hate to discover there is only one exhaust pipe protruding from the rear. Shouldn't the most common vector to mostly radiate waste heat likely end up being along the z-axis with respect to the galactic plane? Don't most ships travel along the galactic plane?

Anyway, when I realized the spider drives can punch through to the alpha wall, I was surprised they can do so inside the hyper limit.

penny wrote:I simply can't get over thinking the tractors can be utilized as point defense. Perhaps limited, and as an emergency, but still.

Sure, like wet navy warships can defend using long sticks. Maybe they have some emergency backup oars that they bring out if the enemy is within literally spitting range.

Yes, a stick or an oar can club a would-be boarder so they won't board... but that's of little benefit if the enemy warship is right there and has you under their guns. In this scenario, you've lost all your other advantages already and are a sitting duck. Trying to club a boarder is pointless and will just aggravate the opponent.

BTW, why don't modern ships have oarmounts on their rails, in case they lose all power?

penny wrote:I am not trying to imagine a perfect stealth system. I am trying to imagine a weapon system that eliminates "waste heat" specifically, in a manner that it does not cause a problem in storyline; as efficiently as the recon drones swanning around all about the system undetected, despite the fact that they should be hotter than a witch's poo. We already know that the stealth system will ultimately not be perfect, because we should expect there to be a spider-drive detector. Not a waste-heat detector. Besides, I am simply a fan who wants this enemy to be more than a paper tiger, unlike the big bad 800lb gorilla.

Why would we want or need that? Why can't the spider detector be the waste heat detector? It doesn't automatically mean it's easy to detect and localise. Therefore, it doesn't mean it is a paper tiger.

And besides, it's not like David's hands get tied. He manages to write really good battles within the constraints of what he has set up. It's also about fighting smartly with the weapons you have, not the weapons you wish you'd had. And moreover, fighting your opponent's, not the opponent's hardware.

tlb wrote:I suppose it is conceivable that would be some future development by the Malign, but the quote seems to make it clear that currently their ships (which are smaller than an LD) deal with waste heat the same way everyone else does.

Agreed. Even if the technology is possible, it won't exist on the LDs because the breakthrough can't have happened yet. The Sharks were being constructed as scale prototypes of the LDs, so one assumes they have all the technology that has been perfected up until that point. That is, adding unknown technology to the larger vessels means resetting the trial phase until you can prove that it can work.

Maybe it'll be serendipity on ships under way. But David does not write a lot of this, especially not in the HV. Everything has a logical development path; smart commanders may use something that was there all along in unexpected ways, like towing pods or having superdreadnoughts pretend to be battlecruisers (the time travel artefact for the "Apocalypse Troll" that sets up the scenario is one exception that comes to mind). But even if ships do find out that this could happen, you'd need to get back to home base to R&D the technique before it gets implemented.

penny wrote:Is this likely? I sure hope so. Please, no more paper tigers. I hope with this enemy even the author has to hone his skills to deliver his very finest in strategy and tactics. With the LD the MA holds a significant tactical advantage. That advantage will force the GA to up their game. I have a feeling the war with the MAlign will thin the herd. Only the strong (skilled in tactics and strategy) will survive. We may finally see the meteoric rise in rank of our newly betrothed officers.

I don't think the LDs represent that major tactical advantage at all. At least, not in their current form. And it wouldn't be unlike David to hang shiny objects in front of us while the real threat is elsewhere (*cough* McQueen *cough*).

There's no way that the Leonard Detweiler is the only class of ships in the MAN or that the monitor-sized spider-drive torpedo boat is the only ship type (I think I'm going to call them "torpedo monitors" from now on, because that's "TM", though it would probably be "MT"). You have to factor in all the other ships and the tactics that they will allow.

Let the HV end in a big bang. Lots of big bangs. Yeah!

Lots yes, but I don't expect them to be big in their majority. David writes best smaller battles, probably because he's got more freedom. I liked the battles in Toll of Honor much more than the one in To End in Fire. I expect one or two major battles only.

I am not sure even this breakthrough in heat management will make them totally invisible. They have their limits in range, and are susceptible to drones. Targeting an LD even after a drone has discovered one still might be difficult after the drone is eliminated.

Flaming datum. You know where the drone got picked up, so that constrains the volume of whatever ship was doing the picking. Send in several drones and you constrain further. Better yet, do recon with missiles.

The MAN commander could fight smart by throwing noise into the data, by picking up drones with torpedoes, so they aren't actually close to the mothership in the first place. So long as the torpedo is able to fire a laser instead of its self-incinerating 3-second graser, it could continue on.

At any rate, given this improvement, the opening phases of the war should be devastating, prompting the GA to develop a spider drive detector via sensor readings from all over the galaxy.

Yes.

I wonder if the exhaust heat can be released on any vector at any given time. Variably-vectored exhaust heat? I'd hate to discover there is only one exhaust pipe protruding from the rear. Shouldn't the most common vector to mostly radiate waste heat likely end up being along the z-axis with respect to the galactic plane? Don't most ships travel along the galactic plane?

The galactic plane is irrelevant, since alignment with the system's ecliptic is coincidental and almost never happens. I suspect you meant the system ecliptic here, which is where, yes, most ships travel. And therefore, the easiest way to avoid detection from other passers-by is to emit heat perpendicular to the ecliptic.

Since all ships in the HV, including spider ones, travel along their longest axis, that does indeed mean the spider ships must have been constructed with the ability to project heat from their sides, not their fore and aft. And since they are axial-symmetric, that means they can emit on 360° and most likely vector it forewards or afterwards by some angle too.

Anyway, when I realized the spider drives can punch through to the alpha wall, I was surprised they can do so inside the hyper limit.

Interesting point. Not sure what that means, but it's interesting.

penny wrote:Anyway, when I realized the spider drives can punch through to the alpha wall, I was surprised they can do so inside the hyper limit.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:Interesting point. Not sure what that means, but it's interesting.

I assume that he realized that that they could "punch through to the alpha wall" when he read this in Mission of Honor or from the same text that Jonathan_S provided earlier:

Chapter 28 wrote:the spider used literally dozens of nodes to project spurs or spikes of intensely focused gravity. For all intents and purposes, each of those spurs was almost like generating a tractor or a presser beam, except that no one in his right mind had ever imagined tractors or pressers that powerful. In fact, at a sufficiently short range, they would have made quite serviceable energy weapons, because these focused, directional beams were powerful enough to create their own tiny foci—effectively, holes in the "real" universe—in which space itself was so highly stressed that the beams punched clear through to the alpha wall, the interface between normal-space and hyper-space.
No single beam would have been of any particular use. Powerful as it might be, it was less than a shadow compared to the output of even a single one of any starship's beta nodes, far less an alpha node. It wasn't even enough to produce the "ripple" along the hyper-space wall which Manticore used for its FTL communications technology. But it did lock onto the wall, and that provided the ship which mounted it a purchase point in deep space—one which was always available, anywhere, in any direction. And when dozens of those beams were combined, reaching out, locking onto the alpha wall and pulling in micro-spaced bursts, they produced something that was very useful, indeed.

Note that this is available anywhere, so presumably within the hyper-limit. We know that the Silver Bullets were able to maneuver within the hyper-limit at Beowulf.