Wick
12/16/20 10:19 PM
173.247.25.195
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Force is mass x acceleration. Jump sails are inherently very light so this presents a problem. I don't know how light, but if the Sunjammer was used as comparison with a 38m square sail at 70 pounds scaled up to the 1024m diameter of an Invader jumpship's sail that would be 40000 lbs, or 20 tons. Compared to a 2000 ton dropship or 150,000 ton jumpship this isn't all that much so it must be given quite a kick by the jumpship that detached it to do more than bounce off the armor that is meant to absorb military grade weaponry. It could damage other jumpsails at low speed, but to damage other craft I'd envision it would have to be moving faster than the jumpship that detached it could probably impel it. Would need more details on the speed it would be impelled, and how stout of an impact the armor could take to know for sure.
One thing that is certain is that the sail itself and loose cables wrapping around another ship is a serious danger, regardless of the amount of armor employed. In fact, its given me the idea for an anti-warship/anti-jumpship weapon: a giant sail sized net. If deployed correctly and wrapped around the enemy vessel, it could potentially pin enemy dropships in place until the net was cut or dislodged and prevent unfurling of the jumpship's sail for recharging. It may even block the fighter bay doors. The warship and dropship weapons could still engage, but if you're trying to fight an invading force it could be a very effective weapon, trapping the invading force at the jump point for at least some time. (Nets should make good weapons against mechs, too but perhaps the single shot nature has deterred its use on the battlefield.)
I concur that a ship that detaches its sail shouldn't have much concern of damaging itself. The cables and sail would presumably be cast away from the ship, not pulled in. The problem is certainly reattaching a sail (likely done at a repair center) or trying to recover a loose sail in empty space (which I said above is extremely hazardous)
I thought the exodus fleet left garbage not to block jump points (because you'd need a hell of a lot of garbage to cover such a large volume of space) but to strategically place garbage at stars not along their true path so as to deter any pursuers who discovered it.
A jump sail should eventually crumple if detached. They aren't rigid structures so its own gravity will cause it to fall in on itself. I'm not saying it happens right away, it could take years. But it'll start to crumple almost immediately, especially if any pressure is put on it to impel it with sufficient velocity to become missile-like, such that within a day or two it should no longer have the form of a wide open sail, but maybe more like a jellyfish shape which would make recovering it difficult. You'd have to bring some small craft and people in space suits out to grab the cables and pull it back into a sail shape for reattaching to a jumpship. The more time that goes by, the harder this becomes. And if a spin in induced, the cables will eventually start to wrap around it, crushing it into a smaller ball and ruining any chance of recovery.
The sail shouldn't move but maybe their it wasn't folded up correctly after previous jump such that it required the captain to roll the ship to have it unfurl properly. A very light pressure from the engines could also cause it to unfurl more quickly (as well as potentially giving it some acceleration to give you your missile effect.)
The proper orientation for standard jump points is the ship facing away from the star with sail between it and star (and thus the backside of the sail being the charging side.) This is because gravity at that distance is far stronger than solar wind and light pressure, especially to be able to appreciably accelerate masses in excess of 100,000 tons. The early FASA authors had thought of jump sails like wind and solar sails for movement, not charging, so they had the orientation backwards thinking that the inside of the sails had to be the collecting side, and that if it was "the proper way" then solar wind and light pressure would collapse the sail into the back of the jumpship. They hadn't fully considered gravity as being much stronger than solar pressure, and the ship's engines even more so. However, the gravity is still so light that the engines don't need to burn anywhere near their 0.1G capacity to maintain position. (To be honest, in 170ish hours time I don't see why they need to burn at all. They aren't going to fall into the star in such short order, and space is so vast that the slight amount of movement is negligible to both the jumpship and dropship transmit times.) The real reason they have drives capable of 0.1G is for intra-system transit, such as to and from repair yards or to move into proper locations for recharge stations to better service them.
Because the nose-away orientation is how it works at standard jump points, I presume pirate points work the same way. At L1 point this means the jumpship nose is facing the planet; at L2 it means the sail is facing the planet and nose away. On this basis, the natural thought is that L1 should be the more popular of the two so the sail doesn't block your line of sight or any radio/laser communications, nor do dropships need to navigate around the sail if deployed. However this puts the jumpship in poor position if it comes under attack from planetary defense forces: it has to roll up its sail, burn toward the planet (and incoming forces) until they run out of fuel and go away, then flip around, burn away from the planet and back to L1, then flip again and unroll the sail to charge. At L2, it could impart thrust and move a little further from the planet, possibly without even rolling up the sail. Its my understanding that the critical factor in jumps is where you're jumping to, not where are you are jumping from, such that a jumpship that escaped L2 is in no danger of misjump. It merely falls behind the planet in orbit such that it takes dropships a short time longer to reach it. (And if I'm wrong about jump safety, then it could simply finish charging, then burn back to L2 for rendezvous.) If expecting any significant aerospace defenses, L2 is the way to go.
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ghostrider
12/17/20 12:58 PM
66.74.60.165
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The information that was given in the older versions of the exodus, said that the garbage was set to damage any pursuers trying to follow the fleet. But as stated, this was before the rules said jumps move items from the actual spot the ship is coming into.
As a side note, depending on the direction the ship is facing when it comes out of the jump, the material would be shot out at a good speed, as some are a kilometer long or more. Half that is still a ways to send debris from the spot and it would have to be moved before the ship materializes.
The books suggested that the sails could be attached to any ship that uses them, including the original, if the ship returned to the system.
There is a fact that seems to be missing from the escape statement that is over looked. Who says you have to use the planet you are raiding's L points? You invade earth, you can use Mars L points to jump back out. Might take a while, but it may well be easier then going back to earth's.
Pirate points also form elsewhere in the system on rare occasions. Hell, you may well having a few choices with just the moon's location as well. I am saying this would be a very long shot, but possible.
Just curious, but where is the information that says the nose away position is standard at jump points?
Nose out would mean the ships sails at the rear would need gravity to pull it into position, over the outbound pressure. And I do understand this is when the deploy the sail, as the ships would probably not be in any position like this when it just jumps in.
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Wick
12/17/20 06:09 PM
173.247.25.195
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I just used L1 and L2 as examples of pirate points because they're the most likely to be employed. Any point in the solar system could be used, but carry greater risk. L3, L4, L5, or the Legrange points for other planetary bodies can all be used but part of the ploy of pirate points is to surprise the defending force. So the closer you jump to target, the more likely your success.
The exceptions would be points in which an intervening body would eclipse the incoming radiation signature from detection by the host planet. I.e., a straight line drawn between the planet and blocking body with the jumpship on the opposite side. The planet's L5 point is blocked by the host star, assuming a single star. The L1 point of an interior planetary body or the L2 point of an exterior work as well but the alignments would be very short-lived, possibly no more than a few minutes. I don't know how long the radiation signature is detectable though so it may not hide the jumpship for long. In any case, artificial satellites or other occupied locations in the system could perceive the radiation signature, so trying to hide the jumpship behind another object might only work well for systems with a single inhabited body with little intra-system technology, no mining bases elsewhere in system, and not much traffic at the zenith or nadir points. (Backwater type worlds.)
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Just curious, but where is the information that says the nose away position is standard at jump points?
Nose out would mean the ships sails at the rear would need gravity to pull it into position, over the outbound pressure.
I think you just answered your own question. The gravity is stronger than outward solar wind or light pressure.
Strategic Operations p 124 explicitly defines the nose-away orientation, for the gravity > light pressure > solar wind reason.
Not quite sure where the first indication of nose-toward was given. Perhaps the cover artwork of Dropships & Jumpships which shows a prominent shadow on the interior of a deployed sail, indicating the craft is facing toward the star. Neither Aerotech or Aerotech 2 describe the orientation, nor either of the D&J books. As far as I can tell it was artwork myth. Maybe FASA had always envisioned nose away but never gave this detail to artists, and it took on a life of its own until Strategic Ops finally set everyone right.
By the way, flipping through the books I see that Battlespace p44-45 describes damage to anything within 2000 meters of a jumpship performing a jump due to "tidal stresses" (presumably something akin to gravitational waves.) So a detached sail that had enough time to make it this far away could presumably be propelled by the tide. Technically the rule describes damage to other craft in the vicinity, up to 3D6 points within 100 meters, but since sails are so fragile I'd assume they must be at, near, or just over the 2000m threshold to be projected away and not seriously damaged. This rule may be redefined in later game books. I really don't follow aerospace rules all that much to know. (Strategic Operations p 89 gives damage to units mounting KF drives in adjacent hexes rather than defining an actual safe distance in meters, and aerospace hexes are so gigantic as to not be practical when talking about propelling a detached sail with the tidal backwash of hyperspace jump.)
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ghostrider
12/18/20 03:23 AM
66.74.60.165
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Ok. Strategic Ops is one of the books I do not have. So it was addressed in the books at a later time. Good to know.
The practicality of anything sent out is a danger to anything, especially at the jump point. There really isn't much friction to slow it down, unlike anything in the atmosphere or closer to gravity. And this is an issue even weeks or months after one is left. Unlikely, but possible a jump ship arrives and only has a few minutes to an hour (maybe longer or shorter, I really can't say) to react to a sail, or anything for that fact, coming towards it.
Wow. A simple device that fires off hard to detect objects at ships that arrive at a jump point... Might be something to look into. Hmmm....
I don't know why, but I have always imagined the ship facing the star, so it looked like a radio telescope.
But this leads to other questions, like stations.
I will have to see if I can find the information about the detachable sails. They hint at it in the Aegis warship. It suggests it became standard, but not sure if it was all warships, or just that one model.
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Wick
12/18/20 06:34 PM
173.247.25.195
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I'd say its a danger only in the event of collision. You have to remember that space is very vast. The odds are exceptionally low that for two things to collide in deep space without a controlled thrust by one of them to aim into the other or being specifically aimed at a target. A detached sail obviously has no controlled thrust of its own and its unlikely the jumpship crew is aiming it at another craft (especially if its intended to be recovered.) Could it happen? Sure. Two satellites collided in Earth orbit several years back, but low Earth orbit is many magnitudes smaller volume of space than a standard jump point and a lot more crowded. The odds are so remote that I don't think jumpship crews lose any sleep over it.
And I don't know if the damage would be so severe or not because while its 20-40 tons, its also a kilometer or in size (unfurled) so the force a "missile jump sail" would have on another object is quite poor because there isn't much pressure behind it. Hit an empty can with an unfolded piece of paper as fast as you can and it just bounces off. Now wad it up and throw it at the can and maybe you knock it over. The sail needs time to collapse under its own gravity to condense into a density that could destroy another ship. If it was shot off with any velocity, by the time it collapses it should have moved sufficiently far enough away from the jump point. And because of the nose-away orientation, the sail would most likely be falling toward the sun, accelerating the entire time. (Though there's nothing to stop a ship from pulling in its sail, reorienting itself, deploying its sail again and then releasing it in a new direction. This is rather counterintuitive though.) I think the scenario is only practically if a ship jumps in closer to the host star than the ship that detached it, along direct a straight line between the two or a dropship that just happens to be passing through the same point in space on its way to or from another ship.
Getting tangled up in the sail or having its cables wrap around your ship still sounds like the more likely scenario than actual critical damage to the ship.
On the other hand I made a mistake about it being detectable on radar and easily avoidable. Strategic Ops says the photovoltaic coating absorbs almost all electromagnetic waves and its as black as a space itself so another craft would have difficulty seeing it coming if it were in line to be hit. On the other hand, the artwork suggests that the interior of a sail can be painted. There's a piece of artwork of a jumpship with the Spirit Cats logo filling the interior of a jump sail in some of the Dark Age era material (Turning Points Irian at the least, but I feel like I've seen it in some others.) Observers could possibly see it moving away, but not toward them.
And actually, a radio telescope would still have the dish shape of the sail's interior needing to face away from the star, meaning nose-away orientation. The dish shape of a receiver is to focus incoming signal onto a single point for collection. For a solar sail (or wind sail for boats) its to collect light pressure (or wind pressure) for locomotion. For photovoltiac jump sails, you don't need a dish - any shape works. The outside of the sail is just as efficient as the inside would have been. Its dish shaped because that's the manner of how its hooked up to the jumpship - with long cables at the edges. On the surface, it seems possible someone could design a jumpship such that it deployed its sail from its bow (nose) instead of stern (engine) but deploying it would be more difficult as gravity would fight the crew as they tried to push it further away. The sail would need thrusters on the edge (meaning more weight, more fuel, and more complexity in furling/unfurling) so its just not practical. It wouldn't need a hole in the middle of the sail for station keeping thrust to pass through though.
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ghostrider
12/19/20 12:22 PM
66.74.60.165
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The ability of a strong wind to send a piece of straw thru a tree trunk is real.
I was not saying you could target a sail that was pushed out, but the fact remains that it is very possible that a ship can be hit by objects sent out in such a fashion.
Which brings out the thought of the ice moving jumpships of old. The asteroid would be destroyed in the first jump. I would never reach the targeted system intact, even if it was the one for the first jump.
The thought of the junk field at a jump point for the exodus has come up that the junk itself may have been more to discourage a large fleet from trying to follow, then a single ship. With the new rules, a single ship would move the junk before it arrives. But what happens when a fleet of ships comes in? Enough space between the ships to allow the debris to be sent into other ships, and their 'shock' waves would do nothing to stop or reverse the course of the junk. Not as efficient as say the old version that implied materializing around the junk, causing internal damage.
I have seen the symbols painted on jumpsails in pictures too. It does make you wonder if that lessens the power absorbing rates of the sail. It is the pictures that make really implies the cone shape of the sail itself.
Another though came up is jump points like the ones around the Defiance plants. Very busy ones would have had issues with moving junk, though this may be more complex then needed in the game. Still annoying that they suggested being able to mine a jump point in the older days, then removed it as it was getting in their way of further warfare.
One last thing for now. I understand the sail would never be useable again, but the same can be said about a bullet. It becomes a piece of shrapnel after use. But it still does the damage. The question, if worth chasing, would be, how fast does an item move when forced out of their position by a jump emergence? It has to clear the jump field before the ship arrives. Still not familiar with the time it takes to complete the junk.
Still. The original concept of the detachable sails with the new force mechanism changes the ability to reuse the detachable sails of old. It is nice to get some feedback for it.
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Wick
12/22/20 06:07 PM
173.247.25.195
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I'm not sure the straw through a tree trunk analogy works here. Wind is a motion of molecules in the air and propels the straw into the trunk because in hurricane conditions the force of wind is so strong - the force being a wave of denser air moving through less dense air at high velocity. Of course, air at the levels where trees grow is much, much more dense than the near vacuum of space. The jumping ship would have to move "something" to impel the jump sail. I don't see the sparse mix of hydrogen, helium, and subatomic particles as being able to easily move something massing 40 tons at any appreciable velocity. The vast majority of any initial velocity it got would be the action of detaching itself and any engine thrust the jumpship put on it after being detached (which couldn't be too much or it would destroy the sail.) The acceleration of gravity toward the star would be the only thing that could accelerate it up to damaging speeds in my opinion. Ultimately, it probably resolves as gravity > detaching action > station keeping engine thrust > jump emergence.
I think junk in the jump point would operate the same way. The incoming or outgoing ships can barely move it compared to gravity's influence, minus examples that happen to cross behind a jumpship or dropship's engines and get blasted out by the thrust the fusion engines produce. Small pieces of junk could be propelled at very high velocities in this manner. Jump sails are not at all small pieces though.
I suspect the ice jumpships from a hyperspace bubble around them to encapsulate the ice, much as later jumpships encapsulate dropships and presumably any other matter in the very near vicinity of the craft. This is something that I'd have to reread to be sure of though.
You could conceivably mine a jump point, if the mines were self-propelling. If they're just floating in dead space then I'm not sure its efficient without millions of them. A single homing mine that can thrust at even a low speed (say, 0.1G) has more than enough time to reach a charging jumpship. They're basically sitting ducks for 6 or 7 days and at a very possible speed (0.1G or higher) the mine can take them before they recharge. Only its own weapons or the weapons of accompanying dropships can save them. Mining a jump point with one mine, and being able to unmine it does not seem like a very Herculean task. (In fact, the fiction doesn't have enough mining in my opinion. Its stupid easy and a highly effective deterrent to invasion.)
Jump sails are opaque - Strategic Ops is very clear the collecting side is black as soot so as to absorb as many photons as possible. Painting the interior side would not affect the collecting side. However, it was my understanding prior to Strategic Ops that they went unpainted on the basis that paint adds weight and you want a light weight sail so its quicker and easier to furl and unfurl it. Its possible though that the Spirit Cats image is part of the construction of that particular sail, like how using different colored thread in a wind sail wouldn't add any more weight over white thread. So while it looks like a painted Spirit Cats logo, but its actually a tinting of the sail components itself. It's a kilometer in diameter and being viewed from a few kilometers away, so its hard to say exactly what it looks like up close.
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ghostrider
01/26/21 12:44 PM
66.74.60.165
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A question came up while reading the modernizing of the Flashman.
Did Comstar have factories that produced Star League items before the clan invasion running?
I don't know if the cargo found with the mechs they had, would have had enough parts to keep all the units in working order. XL engines would not be stocked heavily with any base, as few were 'found' in large numbers in any leaugue cache that was in the game books. The omni 25 was the only one that I can think of that did, and that was to introduce the Savanaha Master.
Things like the ER versions of weapons would need to be worked on after sitting idle for years, and as such, the parts would be hard to find. As the game suggests that every part requires servicing more then often then not, this comes to mind.
It also begs to ask why the houses didn't attempt to get capital weapons from comstar, once the found out comstar could build war ships and had been keeping a fleet as well. This should also have had a large increase of battlestations being built in the Sol system, once the clans said Terra was their goal.
Logic failure?
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Wick
01/26/21 02:42 PM
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Yes, some of the factories on Terra never stopped producing material, others were mothballed and reopened in the 3030s after the public unveiling of the ComGuards. It is widely assumed that Terran factories could continue to make Star League era tech, including XL engines, throughout the Succession Wars but ComStar controlled the supply such that they never found their way to the Successor States. ComStar needed so little of it until after Tukkayid that most of the advanced tech lines were simply mothballed. A notable example was the King Crab KGC-000, which ComStar resumed production of in 3005: it mounts Ferro-Fibrous armor and CASE, indicating that at least these two technologies were still known to ComStar and Terran factories well before the discovery of the Helm Memory Core.
Certainly any Star league era units would need maintenance and refurbishment. But ComStar had a lot of acolytes making sure mechs were always in pristine order. They literally worshipped Star League-era tech after all. And the fact that the Successor States were completely shocked when the ComStar Guards started showing up at HPG stations in 200+ year old mechs that appeared brand new indicates that the ComStar acolytes did their job well. They also kept some of their least desirable mechs in storage for a while before trading them off the Draconis Combine to make peace over the Rasalhague question. ComStar's "trash" was the Combine's treasure because they were still superior in both firepower and maintenance compared to other 200 year old Combine units.
There were a few things the Successor States went to ComStar to buy after no longer being able to make it themselves. Mobile Long Tom Artillery vehicles for example. And they sold a lot of stuff though the New Earth Trading Company as a front, though all of it was just slightly better than what the Houses could build themselves. I don't think they ever sold level 2 stuff on purpose, though there are canon examples of Level 2 mechs being shipped to the Combine in error. Regarding really big tech like Warships, its my understanding that although the Houses discovered the presence of a ComGuard fleet, they assumed they were all only Star League ships and never suspected ComGuard had construction capacities until the Jihad. They also know of the Explorer Corps, indicating ComStar had never lost the means to build standard jumphips but I don't think they knew it was composed of some unique designs, both Jumpships and Dropships. I don't know as much about battlestations, but I think ComStar wrongly assumed that Terra was absolutely impenetrable as it was: and it took WOB deception to land troops and take control of the SDS stations. What battlestations existed were greatly diminished first by the WOB invasion in 3058, the Allied Mercenary Command's attack in 3067, Case White in 3068, and finally the coalition's capture of Terra in the late 3070s. If ComStar had been building stronger naval defenses to prepare for the Clans, any gains were lost during the WOB struggle and the JIhad.
However, regarding Karagin's Flashman, I found no evidence that Krupp ever produced the Flashman on Terra. All indications are that it was only built at RPI's factory on Wasat, which was destroyed in the First Succession War, and at Defiance on Hesperus II, which survived but had to downgrade to the 7K at about the same time. It seems the 7K was built off and on throughout the Succession Wars, rather than continuously. Defiance resumes production of the 8K in 3055. ComStar further contracts Defiance to build them the 9C, and when the WOB takes over Hesperus II they refit the line(s) to make 9Bs and later 9Ms. According to my notes, both lines are destroyed in 3074 and the Flashman is no longer built again. But since his writeup says ComStar is building it, it's tough to argue that they couldn't. Who knows what mech specs they secreted away during the First Succession War: the Flashman is definitely a candidate. If Karagin says Krupp factories in Germany start churning out new Flashmen in late 3057 or early 3058 based on RPI specs, that's certainly believable. Or perhaps ComStar traded salvaged Clan tech to Defiance in exchange for the 8K specs to build Flashmen at Krupp. Either explanation works.
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ghostrider
01/26/21 03:27 PM
66.74.60.165
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I got the question when I read the Flashman.
Wasn't concerned if they were built on Terra or not. The idea that Comstar could build advanced weapons was the thing. And with this, the idea that they did not upgrade to clan tech would extend from this. Cost would not be so much of a concern, as they had the ability to upgrade easier then the others. And for those thatwant to argue, comstar/wob did have their i upgrades on things, that would have cost even more since the research had to be done before hand, unlike just reverse engineering the clan tech.
It is odd that the houses did NOT even try to get comstar to start supplying the SL tech, so they could upgrade a little sooner and faster during the clan invasion.
The WOB Jihad is something that I would like to forget they did.
Once comstar learned the clans intended to hit Terra, starting to build battlestations or satelites with anti warship weapons should have happened. Even with WOB taking Terra, this should have happened. Instead they did nothing at the time, only to come up with the SDS systems. Once discovered they could make the capital weapons, it would have been to Comstars advantage to try and get some weapon positions along the path the clans were taking, in order to slow or possible stop the invasions. Even if it was nothing more then to fire capital missiles at the clan ships then flee. I know this would have jeopardized their ruling clan worlds. I think they would have found a way around it, like building a house storage area that the SL didn't know about, meaning no clan records of it. WOB would be more likely to have done this, as they knew the houses would have to deal with them once the clans were stopped, or even having to deal with the clans once the truce was over with.
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Wick
01/27/21 03:16 PM
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As far as building Clan tech, that was still outside of ComStar's capacity. Undoubtedly they began reverse engineering it like the Houses were as soon as they got their hands on examples, but the WOB schism and then the loss of Terra undoubtedly derailed such plans.
One thing that should have happened, not just with the ComGuards but the AFFC (and in turn AFFS and LAAF), DCMS, and to a much lesser degree the RKA, is to refit existing mechs with Clan tech. We've been given a few unique mixed-tech models here and there, and even a few limited-run production models, but it should have been much much more common. Canon describes regiments with 30-50% of mechs refit with Clan tech, with some companies (merc and House) at 100% refit state, but we haven't enough examples to justify it. The development line derailed things by presenting entirely new mechs during the Civil War and Jihad eras instead of refitting existing models with a Clan tech weapon or two. You can't tell me the Lyrans didn't have Griffins mounting Clan ER PPCs or the Dracs with Panthers mounting the same. A TRO Clan Invasion Refits book is badly needed. I'd argue for a TRO Golden Century Refits book too, where Clan tech is applied to SLDF models, since TRO:GC didn't cover enough of them (and wastes time covering a few rare models like Lynx and Spartan while overlooking much more common models.)
Possible explanation for ComStar not building new anti-warship tech was the worry of such tech landing in the hands of the WoB. Until the WoB suprised them and took Terra, I bet ComStar felt they had enough Warships, solid enough SDS defenses, and control over Terran factories to produce replacement vehicles in the 15+ years they expected to have. Instead they only got 6 years of factory production, and lost half their military strength to the Blakists, and were left with practically no money as the WoB freezed their assets and did their darnedest to keep ComStar from earning any money from HPG services. After 3058 the ComGuard was in no means to do anything to build new defenses to fight the Clans.
Prior to 3058 they did bulk up some defenses along the obvious direct path to Terra, particularly at Tukayyid and Orestes. Maybe with more time they'd have helped the Lyrans or Dracs protect some important worlds in the path (Vega and Dieron for example) but the focus changed to Operation Bulldog and the goal of (semi-)permanent ceasefire with the Clans. I think if the WoB didn't exist, or their takeover of Terra had failed, and Bulldog had never happened, then ComStar very likely may have buffed up defenses prior to the resumption of the invasion in 3067.
I don't think WoB would have given any support to the Houses , and possibly crippled attempts of the secularized ComStar do so. They were set in the old mindset that technology is a relic of the Star League not to be handled by the unwashed masses.
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ghostrider
01/27/21 07:58 PM
66.74.60.165
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That is one of the logic flaws of the game.
Some mercs used more clan tech then houses. This should not be. The original excuse for clan tech being left alone was a lack of understanding to just maintain it. Yet the FC and DC did not outfit their elites with the tech? They did have some understanding, and from a few posts about it, could make the tech (which was too costly).
This should have been done with the elite guards around the leaders at the very least, yet nothing.
Before Phelan brought the wolves in exile to the Kell hounds, the hounds had a large chunk of clan tech inserted into their units.
The SDS system is a sore point. I find it costly to use it, moreso then using normal capital weapons. Blowing up dropships when ramming other ships is far to much bs in my opinion. Yes, it could be done as a last resort, but to be the main defense sounds completely wrong. It also shines light into the supposed inability to use remote control for things.
Comstar and WOB were both able to build anti ship weapons. They both had the tech even before the 3000's, as they had their archive of tech. WOB came out with the super range KF drives. And honestly, they would have definitely started building clan tech, as it would even the playing field with the clans. I had overlooked Comstar losing earth before the truce. It still sounds wrong that they would not have put up capital weapon platforms around Terra, given the fact that tensions were going to explode. It was only a matter of time before the FC hit one of the other houses, probably the DC et again. Given the idea that Walterly was concerned about the FC, defense platforms would be a way to slow down or even stop an FC invasion of Terra. Deploying the Comguards was a way to make the FC think twice before even trying an assault. Outnumbered, but having the HPG to call reinforcements if needed, would leave local FC forces hurting. The black box might have altered some of it, but it seems to have disappeared from the game for a while.
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Wick
01/28/21 03:54 PM
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Some mercs had access to more Clan tech or earlier than House counterparts because the Houses tended to concentrate their better troops closer to Terra, often assigning Mercs to guard the flanks and periphery borders. But you're right that the Houses should have made better use of it. (Some mercs with only minimal tech support would even trade Clan tech the the House militaries in exchange for repair services or spheroid parts of which they could make better use.)
The elite units typically do get a high percentage of refits though. You can see it in the TO&Es of books like FM: Updates where the Davion Heavy Guards RCT get 25% of Clan-tech while the march militias get zero. The problem is we don't have enough mixed-tech models in the 3050s to know what these refits may have been. I'm sure a lot of them were unique models (Allard's Wolfhound for example) but there's got to be a few that were common enough to have been replicated multiple times. That's why I mentioned the Griffin and Panther - two ubiquitous units that would have easily adapted a Clan ER PPC in place of Spheroid models. There's got to be 10 to 20 of each of them as common as they are. But with no TRO entry and no RS they effectively don't exist. I don't care to know all of the undoubtedly unique models floating around in the 3050s, but those that should be comparatively common should have been given TRO and RS treatments.
Combined AFFC outnumbered the ComGuards a little shy of 4-to-1 prior to the Clan arrival, maybe 3 to 1 pre-Tukayyid (after the Houses took their lumps) and about 5 to 1 after Tukayyid. On the surface, this seems like the ComGuard were no match for the AFFC at any point (and arguably none of the other houses) but you have to remember that the Houses had a lot more ground to defend against each other, ComGuard's equipment was in much better shape overall (though some elite House units were on par), ComGuard had superior transport capacity, and unknown to the Houses, a large navy as well. Really the only drawback ComGuard had was lack of experience. If needed ComStar could pull back all their forces to defend Terra in just a few months and could unleash their warship fleet to destroy any hostile dropships, while protecting Terra with a defensive force far superior to anything the Inner Sphere had seen since Amaris. While no doubt the FedCom was a concern for the ComGuard, it was more of a long-term concern than immediate danger, since the AFFC couldn't muster the force necessary to take Terra without potentially losing their empire to the militaries of the other Houses. So from ComStar's perspective, Terra remained effectively invincible against against the Successor State militaries.
(Focht noticed the Clans had the power to take Terra though, which is why they had a proxy fight at Tukkayid as neither side wanted to risk waging war on Terra itself. If ComStar granted safecon, the Terran SDS and ComStar fleet would have served no purpose in aiding the defense; and if they had refused safecon, the Clans would have simply destroyed all of the SDS and likely ComStar's fleet as well, leaving ComStar in a severely weakened state to defend against the next faction to try to take Terra. Focht was right to throw his entire military, minus the navy and Terran defenses at the Clans.)
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ghostrider
01/28/21 05:36 PM
66.74.60.165
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In 2775 the SLDF created a new ECM system that jammed the primary communications links with static, forcing the SDS system to use backup links.
Interesting find in the wiki. One discussion had asked about the Dragoons assault on Terra was destroyed by the SDS system, and why ECM didn't stop that from happening. The statement above suggest it should have happened.
After the Word of Blake took control of Terra, they knew that ComStar would never allow them to keep the planet and would eventually retaliate. Given the size of ComStar's WarShip fleet, one of their first tasks was to rebuild the Reagan SDS weapons that surrounded the Terran system as a countermeasure.
This would suggest that the SDS system in the Sol System could not have been there if Comstar had allowed the clans Safecon onto Terra. WOB controlled Terra BEFORE the Truce Batchall. But it still doesn't explain why Comstar wasn't getting it to work before hand. Just leaving it idle would have worked. Walterly would have definitely pushed to get it working when she took over.
And Focht's challenge is not really in question. The idea was necessary, even beyond not using the warships. The fact he had full communications to all his forces, and could not really be disrupted was a major factor in taking down the clans. For the most part, he had information almost immediately as well as the ability to move forces around to where they were needed.
Capital weapons, which under the wiki suggest the SDS system used moon based versions, should have been build by comstar before the clans. It just doesn't make sense they did not have more done.
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Wick
01/29/21 05:14 PM
173.247.25.195
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The SDS ComStar inherited from the Terran Hegemony/Star League was probably just a tenth of its previous power. Anything described in 2775 can not be for certain assumed in 3058 as much of it would have been destroyed by 2779.
And ComStar may not have had a chance to restore it to anything close to its pre-Amaris state due to lack of resources. Unlike the nearly unlimited resources of the Star League, they had only the Terran system and a few others to draw upon, and cash to buy other material needed. (And buying up large amounts of material that the Successor States might interpret as being used for an SDS would be a red flag.)
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ghostrider
01/29/21 11:14 PM
66.74.60.165
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After the Word of Blake took control of Terra, they knew that ComStar would never allow them to keep the planet and would eventually retaliate. Given the size of ComStar's WarShip fleet, one of their first tasks was to rebuild the Reagan SDS weapons that surrounded the Terran system as a countermeasure. Though they were not able to re-create the advanced computer control systems used by the First Star League, the Word was able to combine their experience with advanced computer systems with drone control technology to create very capable fighting systems. These drone fighters, DropShips, and WarShips were able to inflict heavy damage on the Coalition forces that attacked Terra.
So no. The SDS was not as good as the original SLDF system, but effective enough to slow down the invasion of Terra.
But the fact the system information was taken with Terra, suggests it was available.
One point about the houses and the SDS. None of them really knew about it until they tried to hit WOB. Buying up the large amounts of material could well be covered by Comstar/WOB easily as they were building HPGs and such in the periphery/deep periphery, as well as other projects. The states could track a lot of it, but not all of it, especially when the materials were moved to say the other side of the IS. Or transferred off in route.
Comstar did have issues with pirates capturing HPGs as stated in the books, though I would have to really look up which one said it.
If you really want to be serious, Comstar was still building jumpships that most did not seem to know about, as well as kept other things going as well. Also, the first time the houses went up against the SDS was invading Huntress. The wiki states that the DEST strike against the facility prevented losses.
But this still doesn't explain why there were not ground batteries or moon based ones beyond the ones for the SDS. And yes, ground/asteroid batteries are stated in the wiki for the SDS system.
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ghostrider
02/01/21 01:40 AM
66.74.60.165
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Question came up about weight of ships and thrust a little earlier in a discussion.
How is it every ship besides warships, have to have weight distributed for things like fighters, IE 150 ton cocoons with only 50 tons being actual machinery and the other 100 to cover the heaviest fighter, yet warships don't have to have weight devoted towards dropships attached to it when thrusting or maneuvering?
The idea of a simple Leopard ship verses a Behemoth ship comes to mind. The jumpships have their station keeping thrusters, but aren't meant to move. Yet a warship can have a full load of dropships, 6+ and travel the entire system as well as going into orbit.
These same dropships don't even have to be launched to maneuver in a battle and still not affect the ships performance.
I don't know if they covered this in the newer books.
Any information or even suggestions might help resolve this.
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Wick
02/01/21 04:56 PM
173.247.25.195
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I haven't seen it covered but it appears that the maximum thrust of warships is powerful enough to accelerate beyond 1g even with the extra mass.
Take the Fox for example, which I think its the most extreme example of warship mass vs dropship mass. If fully loaded with five Overlords carrying 36 100 ton mechs, 6 100 ton fighters, and 50 tons of cargo each, that's 69,750 tons over the warship's base 235,000 ton mass. If unburdened the Fox can cruise at 1.5g safely or 2.5g under maximum force, then the math says that with the maximum dropship weight its acceleration reduces to just 1.16g at cruise and 1.93g at max.
For the purposes of game rules, most transit and combat activities occur at 1g, so unless there's a more extreme example than the Fox, almost all warships are powerful enough to be practically unaffected by the extra mass. For roleplaying purposes it might come in handy to get to (or from) a target quicker but for tabletop it appears to be a moot point. The only time where it seems like it might matter is where the ship's normal speed is just 1g, and any extra mass would slow it to under 1g, but it's likely that all of them have sufficient maximum thrust to overcome the extra weight. The Potemkin is such an example. Fully loaded with 25 fully loaded Overlord-Cs, its acceleration would drop to .77g at cruising thrust but it can still maintain a 1.17g maximum thrust.
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ghostrider
02/01/21 07:03 PM
66.74.60.165
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The question came up as a partial discussion of fuel consumption for warships, as the weight added to it from an undocked one changes a few things.
Yes. Someone in the group does actually try and keep the concept of having to buy fuel, in order to limit just how much action can be done by mercs in an area. I agree there needs to be some limits, as there is only so much fuel a single system could make and store at any time. The idea of a full scale invasion into a region, not unlike the clans invasion corridors came up in a major campaign push. As being mercs, the concept of having a few fuel tankers in reserve came up and the one jumpship dedicated to moving them had a major malfunction with the jumpdrive. We did not find out until after a few game days, when the ship did not jump into the system. Large Aerowings in combat burn a lot of fuel quickly, and we had to limit some movement until we could get the employer to get us more.
First targets were enemy infrastructure to limit their abilities, which not only include munitions and normal storage depots, but fuel as well.
Then when someone suggested a large warship style fuel/supplies ship, the questions started coming up. We originally just thought to converted premade ships to handle it, but had rolled up that the only fuel transports available ones were a pair of Behemoths, that were only regular ships, not a fuel transport, like the Mammoth dropships describe.
It sounds like more effort then worth it to play the game, but we agree that there has to be a realistic limit. Otherwise, the novels that have issues like this would seem to be just a story line to slow or stop disaster or major victory. Much like running out of ammo.
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Wick
02/02/21 08:13 PM
173.247.25.195
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I think I addressed most of the concerns on the other thread, but in this particular example being mercs it sounds like you had your own dropship and did not negotiate for in-system transport. Thus you have only the fuel you brought with you. In this manner your number of aerofighter sorties is limited because you must keep enough fuel in reserve to make it back home. Mercs aren't typically the linchpin of an invasion, so you weren't attacking a spaceport or anything hoping to capture much fuel. Still, you should have landed with 70-90% of your fuel, assuming you left friendly space fully loaded, and should have had several sorties worth.
A full-scale invasion with many aerofighters and or the need for many sorties may need some tankers though. However, the primary target in any invasion is to capture enemy spaceports. This is not only to deny its use to the defenders and prevent reinforcements from using it if/when they arrive, but to capture the fuel there to ensure yourself continued aerospace superiority.
Its a similar problem to the ammo issue discussed above though. You wouldn't want to run out of ammo or fuel. You should come with as much as you expect to need, but if you run out you'll be forced to do without or scavenge for more. Both ammo and fuel are plentiful, but availability is somewhat restricted: you have to capture depots to gain either, but doing so effectively grants you whatever you needed (excluding some rare custom munitions)
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djweddingnj
02/10/21 08:26 AM
202.47.56.22
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Misunderstood. I thought you were talking about the lam question, not the multiple tag designator/target question.
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ghostrider
02/10/21 12:53 PM
66.74.60.165
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This thread was created to avoid staying completely on one subject, as in the rules for posting, they don't want threadjacking.
With the latest response, we were discussing if the fuel for a warship's thrusters is the same as a dropship, fighter, or even anything atmospheric. It came from the small discussion of ammo sizes for AC 'classes', as an AC 20 has 200 mm, 185 mm and a few others. The 2, 5, and 10 have variations of the actual size of the shells, but they are just lumped together for easier accounting on the players.
There was some questions of the lam, but not too recently. I was hoping that others would ask questions as well, but so far, I guess I am the main one that has the questions come up.
Rereading it some, the question is does a Warship lose speed with dropships attached to it. Everything else in the game seems to lose speed when overloaded, but the warship. Given there is no 'weight' that is assigned to the dropships, like cargo is, I came up in a private discussion. The dropship could be the size of a Leopard, or as large and heavy as a Behemoth, and nothing is required to be set aside to haul them. And the size of the warship doesn't change anything. A Congress could carry a pair of Behemoths and not change in speed. The 760,000 ton Congress could be large enough to avoid the slow down, but that counters everything else.
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Cray
02/10/21 08:27 PM
71.47.151.234
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Have the developers thought of making a hellfire missile type of bomb?
There are multiple canonical TAG-aimed munitions that can be launched from aircraft, such as Arrow IV guided munitions carried on hard points.
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Something that can be dropped from orbit and take out the sensor nets looking for ships?
Any capital weapon with a range of "long" or greater can bombard the ground to destroy such sensors. However, other than capital missiles, all BT weapons have ranges of under 1000km (which is shortened by passage through atmosphere hexes.) The ship doing the shooting would thus have to get pretty close to the planet compared to sensor ranges.
The sensor options for defenders are detailed in Strategic Operations. While radar is easily detected by approaching ships at longer ranges than radar can detect the ships in turn, the other sensors are passive. Drive plume detectors, emergence wave detectors, radio direction finding, and infrared systems all sit quietly and do nothing to give themselves away. A drive plume detector on a planet can thus watch the fusion torch of DropShip or WarShip from tens of millions of kilometers away while the detector itself is a small telescope hidden somewhere on a planet.
So if a WarShip knows where a detector installation is then, sure, it can turn it into a crater 11 hexes across with its naval autocannons, naval lasers, or other capital weapons. But it's darn hard to spot something like that.
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Also related, just what is the range of mechs sensors?
Can they detect a dropship in orbit?
The rules (in TacOps, I think) limit ground vehicle sensor operation to a matter of some ground maps or even (in the case of Active Probes) a matter of hexes. While realistically a DropShip should be naked-eye visible from the ground at dawn and dusk, the rules don't really handle that.
Mike Miller, Materials Engineer
Disclaimer: Anything stated in this post is unofficial and non-canon unless directly quoted from a published book. Random internet musings of a BattleTech writer are not canon.
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Wick
02/11/21 07:13 PM
173.247.25.195
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Quote:
While realistically a DropShip should be naked-eye visible from the ground at dawn and dusk, the rules don't really handle that.
Depending how much atmosphere a planet has (or rather, how much of the light it blocks), and the orientation between sun(s), dropship, and planet-bound observer, it could be visible for much more of the day. The fusion drive in particular should be many magnitudes of brightness greater than any light it reflected. A very thick, smoggy atmosphere on the other hand could totally inhibit visibility. Just too many factors to put into rules. Its a roleplaying issue where the gamemaster would have to decide.
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Cray
02/11/21 08:49 PM
174.227.131.132
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Quote:
Quote:
While realistically a DropShip should be naked-eye visible from the ground at dawn and dusk, the rules don't really handle that.
Depending how much atmosphere a planet has (or rather, how much of the light it blocks), and the orientation between sun(s), dropship, and planet-bound observer, it could be visible for much more of the day. The fusion drive in particular should be many magnitudes of brightness greater than any light it reflected. A very thick, smoggy atmosphere on the other hand could totally inhibit visibility. Just too many factors to put into rules. Its a roleplaying issue where the gamemaster would have to decide.
Oops, my bad. I meant when the DropShips were in orbit and unpowered. Most of them have the same maximum dimensions of the ISS (~100 meters), which I watch going over once or twice a month. It's only visible at dawn and dusk when observers on the ground are in darkness but the ISS is high enough to still catch sunlight.
When powered, realistically DropShip exhaust should mostly be emitting in x-ray frequencies. They might superheat surrounding air to incandescence, but the exhaust velocity of DropShips means they should usually be emitting invisibly hot hydrogen and helium.
Of course, realistically even a 1970s x-ray telescope should be able to spot those drive plumes across the solar system rather than only tens of millions of kilometers away, but the game had to give spacecraft a chance to be sneaky somehow. And canon novels generally say DropShip plumes are naked eye visible, so "realistically" can take a hike.
Mike Miller, Materials Engineer
Disclaimer: Anything stated in this post is unofficial and non-canon unless directly quoted from a published book. Random internet musings of a BattleTech writer are not canon.
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Frabby
02/12/21 07:24 AM
84.185.70.157
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I have this head canon theory where BattleTech "fusion" engines include some arcane Kearny-Fuchida effect in their working principle.
Whenever they seem to defy realism as defined by real-world physics as we currently understand them, that's my go-to explanation. Like, why there is no huge, easily discernible reaction drive plume. Maybe BT engines use a Kearny-Fuchida element that makes them work like something resembling an EM drive, i.e. without reaction (partly; they apparently still have/need drive cones).
It can conveniently also explain why you can only dock one DropShip per hardpoint and not carry 39 Leopards inside a single Behemoth - KF shenanigans from the DropShip drives interfere with the KF physics of the jump drive, even when the drives aren't powered.
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ghostrider
02/12/21 01:57 PM
66.74.60.165
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The size of such a 'field' if it does exist, has to be questioned on the impact of the K-F drive.
4 mechs and two fighters in a Leopard should not come even close to an Overlord or Fortress, and the drive would not cause anywhere close to the drive of a Behemoth. (To go to an extreme here, imagine this is carrying a full load of loose engines, such as going to defiance for installation.)
This would also make the Argo complete unable to be used as well.
And there would have to be a limit, as the scout, though it can't carry a behemoth, can carry things like a Mammoth or Excalibur. But yet a Monolith can carry 9 without any issues or size restrictions. It also makes the warship drive questioned as well. The compact core would produce a smaller field, so the K-F boom would have limited. With warships, my limited understanding is The actual size of the ship is not what limits it, but the tonnage, so a ship 4 times the normal width, but only a quarter of the normal height is possible.
Dropship placement on warships seems to have them at the extreme edges of the ships, as tucking them in holes and crevices would make docking and undocking an even larger nightmare.
Though the idea of some sort of 'field' does have some interest in them. New defense, such as a very limited 'ecm shield' or new way to lock onto the unit using it comes to mind. Obviously it would be limited to a fusion engine only, which has to be noted.
A second idea is being able to form a 'core' in the mech and allow it to teleport slightly to another ship, such as a boardig action. Limit to less the 10 km in a zero-g environment. Recharge would make it a one way, so you have to have something to recover it by.
Just thought of a possible reason why it couldn't. Several fighters near a jumpship that is about to jump, or a mech on the hull of the jumpship doesn't prevent or disturb a jump. Even with it being in the K-F boom, as the sail assembly would is larger then the diameter of jumpships.
Though if you go with this, a weapon that can be stuck to the hull of any ship docked on the jumpship could be used to disturb the jump. Increase misjump probability to aborting entirely, and having to recalculate it, due to the additional 'energy mass'.
One thing for the visibility of dropships, the color and style of paint jobs would change the likelyhood of spotting it in orbit. Though the CEWS/ECM systems could very well make a 'cloak' for the ship as well. Would force something like a TEMP pulse system to be created to counter even attacking dropships and fighters from controlled landing.
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Cray
02/12/21 02:48 PM
71.47.193.139
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Quote:
It can conveniently also explain why you can only dock one DropShip per hardpoint and not carry 39 Leopards inside a single Behemoth - KF shenanigans from the DropShip drives interfere with the KF physics of the jump drive, even when the drives aren't powered.
DropShips' KF booms would interfere, too, and are vital to helping map the mass inside cargo bays.
Mike Miller, Materials Engineer
Disclaimer: Anything stated in this post is unofficial and non-canon unless directly quoted from a published book. Random internet musings of a BattleTech writer are not canon.
Edited by Cray (02/12/21 02:49 PM)
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Wick
02/12/21 08:54 PM
173.247.25.195
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Quote:
Just thought of a possible reason why it couldn't. Several fighters near a jumpship that is about to jump, or a mech on the hull of the jumpship doesn't prevent or disturb a jump. Even with it being in the K-F boom, as the sail assembly would is larger then the diameter of jumpships.
The sail assembly doesn't have anything to do with affecting the jump, other than that the field obviously must be at least large enough to fully encompass them. In fact the field needs to be somewhat larger.
If you look at the specs, dropships can extend further than the sail arms. Take an Invader-Overlord combination for example, which wouldn't be a particularly rare combination. The Invader is known to be 505 meters in length. There is a very detailed scaled diagram of it, that provides a width of the sail arms at approximately 243 meters wide with a diameter of the ship at the docking collars being about 60 meters wide. 243 minus 60 gives 183 meters of total clearance, but a dropship can only sit on one side or the other. An Overlord is 99 meters in diameter. This means that it will stick out at least 8 or 9 meters beyond an Invader's sail arms.
Another prominent example is the picture of the Tramp and Union from TRO:3057. The Tramp has such tiny sail arms that its obvious larger dropships would stick out beyond the arms if a Union nearly does.
https://www.sarna.net/wiki/File:Tramp.gif
So I don't think weapons, mechs, or fighters attached to the hull would pose any kind of problem leading to misjump. The jump field is clearly a good deal larger than a jumpship's maximum diameter. If big things (dropships) don't affect it, then small things (weapons, mechs, fighters) surely wouldn't. Nor would their mass, as jumpships are always many times heavier than all the dropships it could potentially carry.
Quote:
Though the CEWS/ECM systems could very well make a 'cloak' for the ship as well.
But dropships engines give off a huge amount of radiation. Even if not in visible light* it would in other bandwidths, such as infrared, ultraviolet or x-ray. They are also quite large and would not easily hide from ground based radar without a moon or some other object to mask their signature. The concept of a 'stealth' dropship just isn't feasible.
* Art seems to suggest that the exhaust for both aerospace fighters and dropships is highly visible.
Edited by Wick (02/12/21 09:04 PM)
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ghostrider
02/12/21 09:40 PM
66.74.60.165
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Wick.
The suggestion of the fighters and such being inside of the K-F boom was a response to Frabby's idea that fusion engines inside units might affect the jump field.
Frabby: I have this head canon theory where BattleTech "fusion" engines include some arcane Kearny-Fuchida effect in their working principle.
It was my suggestion that if this is true, then the jump would be affected, though might not be that much, so the computer needs some extra time/input to accomidate such a notion.
I want to say an old picture that represents the K-F field extends out in an oval shape around the ship.
The oval shape is why I think stacking some dropships should be ok. Nothing would be outside the field, such as an ice asteroid being moved by Ryan's Iceships would have.
The CEWS/ECM was in response to Cray saying I meant when the DropShips were in orbit and unpowered. It was in response to saying dropships in orbit might be seen without equipment at dawn/dusk.
Sorry I did not emphasize that in my responses.
In the past, I did suggest that the K-F booms had to be larger then the docked dropships, otherwise, they would be ripped apart, as the jump would not have them covered for the jump.
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