Insanity: Screening elements in the HV

Theemile wrote:

Jonathan_S wrote:
Where does it say the modes ramp up their power (to above their normal baseline)? I don't think they ever do get more power than they were originally getting. (Now during the fluctuation some of the non-damaged nodes might ramp down to a lower power setting and then ramp back up to 100%, but I don't think they ever go to 'overpower' settings where they're getting more than 100% normal power).

The wedge falters because nodes are knocked out, the wedge stabilizes (if it can be stabilized) weaker. Ships that have lost impeller nodes generally suffer reductions in possible acceleration. That would have to be because the wedge is now weaker and so the compensator lacks as deep a 'sump' as it had before, and so can't compensated for as much acceleration.

We don't know whether restoring a node to a still functioning wedge requires the kind of extra power kick that bringing a wedge up does. If so the ship might have to run the wedge at reduced power for a bit to divert sufficient power into the start capacitors to bring a node back online. But if not then as soon as the power supply to the node was repaired it could be brought back in and the wedge strengthened up that bit more.

But even if the remaining nodes were somehow getting more power than before some got knocked out that power would be coming from the ship's reactor(s) -- and if you can 'overdrive' a node I suspect it would come with a higher risk of failure AND a significant reduction in operating life. And the reactor(s) would (presumably) have extra power to send because they don't need to send that power to the offline/destroyed nodes. So instead of sending each alpha node 1/32nd (IIRC) of the alpha node power budget if two were gone you could instead theoretically send each surviving node up to 1/30th of that same power budge.



Also some ships, notably the big Mars class CAs have "over-powered" wedges that are somewhat more powerful than required to accelerate a hull their size to the limits of their compensator. (This was explained in the books as the Peeps hoping to reverse engineer or steal the improved RMN/GSN compensators and when they couldn't it left the wedge over powered. This still had two benefits - 1) they could lose a small number of nodes before suffering any acceleration loss, and 2) they could tow more pods than most CAs.) Note however that the power differences aren't enough that a Mars could survive a wedge collision with another somewhat smaller CA -- you need a lot larger difference in comparative wedge power to make such an impact survivable.

All the way back to OBS when the Fearless was damaged, and multiple times after that - Warships have extra node power they can't use because it exceeds the ability of the compensator, but it is there specifically to compensate for battle damage.

How much power? - I don't know - 5-10%, possibly more. That's why advanced Compensators were initially easy to install - the ships already had sufficient node power to use them without upgrading the drive spaces initially, and that extra node power was later used to haul pods. Yes, the MARS had schloads of extra power, because it was designed with the new comps in mind (which it didn't get), which just gave it MORE redundancy and the ability to haul more pods, But every warship has some degree of extra node power.

penny wrote:It seems that it is. More power is being diverted to the nodes which diverts it to the wedge. HV ships simply have to go through a middle man (nodes) when power cuts out. But it is automatic. See? There is a Star Trek analogue after all. No way to cut out the middle man when the power cuts out though. But of course, we were discussing the sidewalls in the ? thread. I suppose when the wedge falters the sidewalls weaken as well?

tlb wrote:

penny wrote:Text has witnessed the wedge faltering but staying up. I suppose when a wedge is faltering it is drawing more power from the reactor during those moments. It seems intuitive that a wedge powered by a reactor should have more energy to contribute to the health of the wedge than one powered by a bank of capacitors. If vice versa then vice versa. Thus, wedge on wedge collisions should only result in destruction of the weaker wedge, and not necessarily the smaller wedge.

So, during the time Manticore had reactor powered missiles and Haven did not, it would seem that in a war of wedges, Haven’s missiles should not have survived.

I do not understand your problem. Because a ship's wedge is bigger and stronger than that of any missile; the primary weapon of the missile is now the energy beam (either X-ray laser or graser), since a wedge cannot cover all of the ship. The bigger wedge is invariably the stronger wedge.

Note that the wedge of a capacitor powered CM can be just as strong as that of Manticore's fusion powered missile, it is just much shorter ranged. The difference is that capacitors can put out at least as much power per unit of time as a reactor, but for about the same size a reactor can do it longer.

tlb wrote:Note that the wedge of a capacitor powered CM can be just as strong as that of Manticore's fusion powered missile, it is just much shorter ranged. The difference is that capacitors can put out at least as much power per unit of time as a reactor, but for about the same size a reactor can do it longer.

penny wrote:That has always been a hard pill to swallow as well. One I've kept under my tongue... in cheek. How can that be, if wedge fratricide truly depends on the sizes of the wedges? I could certainly understand it if the speed of the CM was way beyond that of the capital missile where the CM is nearly an infinite mass missile. But that is nowhere near the case.

penny wrote:
Thanks for that. It always got my goat.

Although I do have a bone to pick with you, specifically, Theemile. Remember back in the ? thread where I asked whether my baggage about Star Trek when Kirk asks for more power to be diverted to the shields could apply here? (pg. 216)

You said this wasn't possible. It seems that it is. More power is being diverted to the nodes which diverts it to the wedge. HV ships simply have to go through a middle man (nodes) when power cuts out. But it is automatic. See? There is a Star Trek analogue after all. No way to cut out the middle man when the power cuts out though. But of course, we were discussing the sidewalls in the ? thread. I suppose when the wedge falters the sidewalls weaken as well?

Theemile wrote:The sidewalls have independent generators, but they "stitch" into the wedge. Linear sidewalls cannot function without a wedge to support them, so wedge goes down - sidewalls go down. And even though they are separated systems, they are integrated (maybe phase timing is integral or something like that), and bow /buckler sidewalls are built into the drive rooms, and much more integrated with the nodes than normal sidewalls, but are still separate devices, though integrated with the drive systems.

Even there, they can't be over driven with more power, though in a damage scenario with multiple lost reactors, you may need to choose where to dedicate power to.

penny wrote:

tlb wrote:Note that the wedge of a capacitor powered CM can be just as strong as that of Manticore's fusion powered missile, it is just much shorter ranged.[/b] The difference is that capacitors can put out at least as much power per unit of time as a reactor, but for about the same size a reactor can do it longer.

That has always been a hard pill to swallow as well. One I've kept under my tongue... in cheek. How can that be, if wedge fratricide truly depends on the sizes of the wedges? I could certainly understand it if the speed of the CM was way beyond that of the capital missile where the CM is nearly an infinite mass missile. But that is nowhere near the case.

tlb wrote:I understand that sidewalls and bucklers have separate generators (see the discussion about adding a stern buckler to a LAC), but have always assumed that those generators still make use of the nodes to project the fields. Is that true or false or unknown?

penny wrote:It is still difficult to fathom. Text says wedge fratricide depends on the respective sizes of the wedges.

Look at the difference in the size of a CM to the size of a capital missile.

https://honorverse.fandom.com/wiki/Missile

It's all about thresholds in the HV it seems.

It's not the size of the dog, ...