Insanity: Screening elements in the HV

tlb wrote:If we assume that that Darius is currently staying hidden, hoping that everyone will believe that the fall of Galton ends the threat, then I do not see how they could respond in the near term to anything like this. In any case, a minefield is a minefield, no matter how it is composed; so why would they want to respond?

penny wrote:You'd have to ask them. I'm just the precautionary tale. My guess would be because they have some sort of future plans that include the MWJ. The gist on the other side of my point says that such an immense project would be obvious to everyone entering the system prompting the MAN to get nosey.

P.S. Wouldn't such an immense array be vulnerable to proximity kills by stealthy weapons? 3-second firing graser heads with an output even much less than the g-torp can decimate a minefield.

I would not deny that that the Malign could act, even though one of the remaining Detweilers said that they will need a decade of planning to get things back on track. I would just expect them to have actually drawn up those plans before acting. As you say a minefield could be vulnerable to a sneak attack, which means they could wait until other action plans are mature. But acting too soon, means that Galton was sacrificed for nothing.

PS: I greatly dislike using the word "decimate" to mean "devastate" or "annihilate", since its origin is to kill one out of every ten and we still use the prefix "deci" to mean one-tenth. I understand that its meaning has been expanded by sloppy usage.

penny wrote:Hmm. You’re probably right Jonathan. It certainly would make more sense and would be more plausible if as many forts as possible are equipped. Since Honor did not specifically say all of the forts or several or some, I simply concluded it was a single specially modified fort.

However, beamed power has to have its limits. Just like currently (no pun intended) electricity can only be sent so far down a utility line before it needs a step-up transformer. So I assumed only the closest fort (or forts) could be used. But I suppose an array of 10,000 platforms will find themselves better served by an array of forts.

That’s going to require a lot of work though. Modifying an array of forts for power delivery, OR equipping each platform to deliver an indefinite amount of shots. And, if for some reason known only by the author it requires both solutions, then all of the work that follows is going to be an immense project and it is certainly going to alert the MAN that maybe they should not allow the project to be completed.

I'm not sure how much they'd need to modify the forts. Beamed power is a standard capability in the Honorverse and the forts would already have the ability to do so in order to power towed decoys and their Keyhole IIs.

But what we don't know is how much power their current emitters can handled and how many redundant emitters they already carry.

But as someone noted earlier both Haven and the League have shown beamed power splitter relays; allowing ships to beam power to ridiculous number of platforms -- so even if for some reason Manticore hadn't looked into that they should presumably be able to leverage Haven't Donkey tech to externally split beamed power to all these energy weapons platforms from their forts existing beamed power emitters.

tlb wrote:

tlb wrote:However, thinking more about that, it might be better for the fort to cycle through the platforms; rather than dividing up the power at each intermediate step.

penny wrote:But do consider that cycling might not be possible. Beamed power has its limits and capacitors are rated for their time to charge as well as their capacity. It might not be possible to cycle in real time.

Since both are future technology, it is interesting that you want to place limits on them. Somehow the future plasma capacitors are able to keep their power much longer than expected from our point of view, the ordinary pods used in system defense mode did not have additional power supplied. Please remember that the capacitors in the Silver Bullets could be kept topped off by solar panels, which are unlikely to match even the intermittent power from a beam.

It isn't just I who have placed limits on them. Even the author has realistically placed limits on them. As well he should have. Manticoran tech is not powered by magical elves. Well, except perhaps the wedge.

But the fact that they need to be kept topped off indictates that even plasma capacitors have an inherent discharge rate like regular capacitors. Have you noticed that the more expensive the device is in your home the longer it will retain some of its settings in case of a brown out or power failure? When you reset or reboot your cable box, it is recommended to unplug it for at least 45 seconds beforehand. Or upon getting unsatisfactory results when simply rebooting it.

Capacitors are always going to have a limitation placed on their ability, thus their various "ratings" of power capacity, recharge time and discharge time. I don’t doubt that each of those ratings are very high in the HV; certainly if we consider what’s asked of them. But they do not have magical powers. The wedge uses up all of the available pixie dust.

Jonathan_S wrote:

penny wrote:Hmm. You’re probably right Jonathan. It certainly would make more sense and would be more plausible if as many forts as possible are equipped. Since Honor did not specifically say all of the forts or several or some, I simply concluded it was a single specially modified fort.

However, beamed power has to have its limits. Just like currently (no pun intended) electricity can only be sent so far down a utility line before it needs a step-up transformer. So I assumed only the closest fort (or forts) could be used. But I suppose an array of 10,000 platforms will find themselves better served by an array of forts.

That’s going to require a lot of work though. Modifying an array of forts for power delivery, OR equipping each platform to deliver an indefinite amount of shots. And, if for some reason known only by the author it requires both solutions, then all of the work that follows is going to be an immense project and it is certainly going to alert the MAN that maybe they should not allow the project to be completed.

I'm not sure how much they'd need to modify the forts. Beamed power is a standard capability in the Honorverse and the forts would already have the ability to do so in order to power towed decoys and their Keyhole IIs.

But what we don't know is how much power their current emitters can handled and how many redundant emitters they already carry.

But as someone noted earlier both Haven and the League have shown beamed power splitter relays; allowing ships to beam power to ridiculous number of platforms -- so even if for some reason Manticore hadn't looked into that they should presumably be able to leverage Haven't Donkey tech to externally split beamed power to all these energy weapons platforms from their forts existing beamed power emitters.

You have a point. But that application does not call for a ridiculous amount of power per unit of time. And I thought their application has the beamed power and the platforms much closer together.

And do consider that the project is getting to be immense, factoring in the many platforms. And before anyone goes down that rabbit hole, we do not know the limit of the amount of power a platform can handle. Considering the amount of power needed in this application in real time, I'm skeptical without another mother load of pixie dust discovered.

An interesting site to play with.

https://www.omnicalculator.com/physics/capacitor

tlb wrote:Please remember that the capacitors in the Silver Bullets could be kept topped off by solar panels, which are unlikely to match even the intermittent power from a beam.

penny wrote:It isn't just I who have placed limits on them. Even the author has realistically placed limits on them. As well he should have. Manticoran tech is not powered by magical elves. Well, except perhaps the wedge.

But the fact that they need to be kept topped off indictates that even plasma capacitors have an inherent discharge rate like regular capacitors.

-- skip --

Capacitors are always going to have a limitation placed on their ability, thus their various "ratings" of power capacity, recharge time and discharge time. I don’t doubt that each of those ratings are very high in the HV; certainly if we consider what’s asked of them. But they do not have magical powers. The wedge uses up all of the available pixie dust.

The Silver Bullets were designed to loiter for up to 80 days around Beowulf with just solar panels to keep the capacitors at a level to run the 3 second grasers, and yet you believe that intermittent beam power would not be enough top off an IEWP?

However you are the one that wanted to sprinkle magical pixie dust all over the spider drive to allow it to send waste heat into hyperspace. So capacitors are too mundane, but the spider drive was not magical enough.

Jonathan_S wrote:But as someone noted earlier both Haven and the League have shown beamed power splitter relays; allowing ships to beam power to ridiculous number of platforms -- so even if for some reason Manticore hadn't looked into that they should presumably be able to leverage Haven't Donkey tech to externally split beamed power to all these energy weapons platforms from their forts existing beamed power emitters.

Actually no, both Haven's Donkey and the SLN's Husky have multiple tractor beams, but not transmitters for beam power (I checked the text to make sure). I speculated that it would be possible for a platform to receive power and send it out to multiple targets; but then I realized that each time that was done the output beam's power would be less than the input beam's power divided by the number of output beams. That is when I switched to suggesting that the source would cycle through its targets, giving each an intermittent boost of power (which Penny seems to say would not be possible based on what he knows of capacitors).

tlb wrote:

Jonathan_S wrote:But as someone noted earlier both Haven and the League have shown beamed power splitter relays; allowing ships to beam power to ridiculous number of platforms -- so even if for some reason Manticore hadn't looked into that they should presumably be able to leverage Haven't Donkey tech to externally split beamed power to all these energy weapons platforms from their forts existing beamed power emitters.

Actually no, both Haven's Donkey and the SLN's Husky have multiple tractor beams, but not transmitters for beam power (I checked the text to make sure). I speculated that it would be possible for a platform to receive power and send it out to multiple targets; but then I realized that each time that was done the output beam's power would be less than the input beam's power divided by the number of output beams. That is when I switched to suggesting that the source would cycle through its targets, giving each an intermittent boost of power (which Penny seems to say would not be possible based on what he knows of capacitors).

Yes. I was going to point out the problem with splitting the beamed power. It reminds me of my college days splitting the incoming cable box's signal. Can't split it but so many times before the signal degrades too much. There is a limit to splitting it just once if the cable is far too long.

I didn't say it definitely would be impossible, but that it might be. Something else from my college days of beating the cable company is the memory of the amount of additional equipment that can quickly multiply. Which in those days were the number of splitters, cable, and switching boxes to manage it all. The switching boxes were push button initially. The platforms probably would need to be upgraded internally. And like kzt is fond of pointing out, cords are not allowed. As far as the cable boxes, equipment to boost the signal could be made cheaply in the lab, but then, the list begins to grow. Then companies began to sell signal boosters.

penny wrote:like kzt is fond of pointing out, cords are not allowed

However power is distributed by plasma conduits instead of electric cables (which blows my mind). At some point plasma is converted to electricity, unless they are powering molecular circuitry directly with plasma.

tlb wrote:

tlb wrote:Please remember that the capacitors in the Silver Bullets could be kept topped off by solar panels, which are unlikely to match even the intermittent power from a beam.

penny wrote:It isn't just I who have placed limits on them. Even the author has realistically placed limits on them. As well he should have. Manticoran tech is not powered by magical elves. Well, except perhaps the wedge.

But the fact that they need to be kept topped off indictates that even plasma capacitors have an inherent discharge rate like regular capacitors.

-- skip --

Capacitors are always going to have a limitation placed on their ability, thus their various "ratings" of power capacity, recharge time and discharge time. I don’t doubt that each of those ratings are very high in the HV; certainly if we consider what’s asked of them. But they do not have magical powers. The wedge uses up all of the available pixie dust.

The Silver Bullets were designed to loiter for up to 80 days around Beowulf with just solar panels to keep the capacitors at a level to run the 3 second grasers, and yet you believe that intermittent beam power would not be enough top off an IEWP?

However you are the one that wanted to sprinkle magical pixie dust all over the spider drive to allow it to send waste heat into hyperspace. So capacitors are too mundane, but the spider drive was not magical enough.

True. But I can easily accept that. For one thing the solar array is directly affixed to the platform. Proximity allows for efficiency. And the panels are only responsible for one shot of the 3-second graser.

We are discussing plans of powering thousands of them in real time with beamed power, for all intents and purposes indefinitely (or until a protracted engagement is over). Split, beamed power.