Insanity: Screening elements in the HV

penny wrote:I think plasma capacitors are similar. They are kept topped off with a small maintenance charge running across them. Once they are depleted they are done.

tlb wrote:

penny wrote:I think plasma capacitors are similar. They are kept topped off with a small maintenance charge running across them. Once they are depleted they are done.

So you think plasma capacitors are one-use and then done? Do you have text for that? Because we know that capacitors are ubiquitous on warships, where every energy weapon has capacitors to help keep up the energy level.

PS: When I search for Android capacitor problem, the references are to a piece of software called "Capacitor". Jailbreaking an Android device can brick it, but I do not see where anyone mentions voltage on the capacitors. However maybe someone with more Android expertise can explain what seems unlikely to me.

tlb wrote:So you think plasma capacitors are one-use and then done? Do you have text for that? Because we know that capacitors are ubiquitous on warships, where every energy weapon has capacitors to help keep up the energy level.

Jonathan_S wrote:

tlb wrote:So you think plasma capacitors are one-use and then done? Do you have text for that? Because we know that capacitors are ubiquitous on warships, where every energy weapon has capacitors to help keep up the energy level.

Aren't the ones on ships described as superconducting capacitor rings? That may be quite different than the plasma capacitors mentioned mostly (always?) in conjunctions with missiles.

For that matter didn't RFC say at one point that the fission powered LACs had some form of plasma generator since they couldn't tap it as needed from their reactors -- though I'm not sure everything they might need plasma (instead of electrons) for.

Anyway, while I can't think of any place that states plasma capacitors can't be recharged, I also don't think we can assume the ship capacitors (which are described as being recharged) necessarily tell us about the capabilities of the plasma capacitors.

(Mind you, it seems pretty misleading to call a single use item a capacitor; as the rapid charge and discharge cycle is kind of a capacitor's defining characteristic)

tlb wrote:

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.

tlb wrote:So you think plasma capacitors are one-use and then done? Do you have text for that? Because we know that capacitors are ubiquitous on warships, where every energy weapon has capacitors to help keep up the energy level.

Jonathan_S wrote:Aren't the ones on ships described as superconducting capacitor rings? That may be quite different than the plasma capacitors mentioned mostly (always?) in conjunctions with missiles.

For that matter didn't RFC say at one point that the fission powered LACs had some form of plasma generator since they couldn't tap it as needed from their reactors -- though I'm not sure everything they might need plasma (instead of electrons) for.

Anyway, while I can't think of any place that states plasma capacitors can't be recharged, I also don't think we can assume the ship capacitors (which are described as being recharged) necessarily tell us about the capabilities of the plasma capacitors.

(Mind you, it seems pretty misleading to call a single use item a capacitor; as the rapid charge and discharge cycle is kind of a capacitor's defining characteristic)

penny wrote:My guess is it isn't a single use item unless the charge falls below a certain threshold where they cannot be recharged through simple means like sending electricity through them. When they fall below a certain threshold they have to be replenished. Aboard ship it is a simple process to replenish them. Simply send fresh plasma through the conduits to fill the reservoir.

The shell or casing (which doubles as the reservoir) of the capacitor which holds the plasma is probably retained. At least in my vision of plasma capacitors.

Or, the capacitors themselves might be recharged by a reservoir of plasma that sits nearby. I'm leaning towards the former.

runsforcelery wrote:

kzt wrote:We'll I'll agree there are enough problems with storing pods on the hull. It was just previously stated the issue was reactor duration.

But I will ask how a DD or other ship without a pod bay is supposed to power up a pod reactor. Do they have to drop the wedge and maneuver it to dock it on the boat bay where they power up recon drone reactors?

Also not giving up thinking the the towing of roughly a SD(P) pod core by a LAC seems kind of crazyland.

I hope that I dealt with the "crazyland" aspect a couple of posts earlier.

Somebody mentioned the pods carried externally on some Andermani warships before the Empire developed proper pod-layers of its own. Those were very much a temporary expedient. They were built with more shielding than normal ship-deployed pods, but less than system-defense pods would normally carry. They did require power to be delivered to the pods from shipboard systems to spin up the pod grab drivers and the missiles' impellers, which required additional plasma conduits (but see one of my other comments below), and that was another reason they were regarded as temporary expedients to be dispensed with as soon as possible.

Destroyers without bays are entirely capable of charging up pods' onboard capacitors, but only at the rate of one or two at a time, because most warships have at least a couple of your "extension cords" built in — usually on their dorsal hulls, where the wedge will protect them in combat. What a destroyer (or any other vessel without an internal missile core) can't do is to power up whole lots of them in a short period of time. That means that if they are planning to deploy pods in combat, they have to take the time to individually power them up before they are going to be needed. It's a prep stage for combat that I hadn't really realized that I may never have shown in the books. I thought I had, but when I started to tell you that I had, I realized that I couldn't remember where I had done it. Which suggests, to my mighty intellect, that perhaps I actually didn't.

At any rate, this is where capacitor dwell time does come into play, which may be the source of the confusion. The other factors are also relevant where the notion of permanent/long-term attachment of missile pods as a sort of strap on box launcher is concerned, but as a general rule, it's probable that the capacitors would usually "go flat" before any of the other issues degraded the missiles themselves and rendered them in operative. But they're why you couldn't leave scads of pods on the exterior of a warship indefinitely even if you had lots of "extension cords" . . . or Velcro.

Pearls of Weber wrote:So the Andermani found themselves in the position of playing catch-up, just as much as Haven did. But the Andermani didn't have the clandestine conduits to Solarian technology which the Committee of Public Safety managed to maintain. They couldn't bootstrap their native-grown technology the same way that Haven could, but they had a better homegrown R&D capability, which they put to work. Without the advantage of captured specimens of Manticoran hardware or the impetus of imported Solly technology, they had to develop their own applications of the new weapons systems, and the inherent limitations of their technology base caused some of their applications to be less than optimum. Their single-drive missile technology was substantially improved, for example, but at the expense of building bigger single-drive missiles. When they got ready to build their first-generation of MDMs, however, they ran into the problem that they could duplicate neither the Manties' new micro fusion plants nor the Manties' superdense capacitors. Indeed, the capacitors they could build were actually somewhat bigger and clunkier than those the Havenites could build, since Haven had recognized the need for major improvements in that area of technology and had bought the best their sources with them the League could provide (always remembering that they had to have the capacity to build the things themselves). Hence the problem that at the beginning of AAC, Andermani MDMs are only about as capable as Manticoran Mark 16 dual-drive missiles. Which, be it noted, however, are still enormously superior to anything the Solarian League Navy has deployed, even now.

Theemile wrote:
I mentioned awhile back a sudden realization I had - Plasma is an analog for steam power. Capacitors = Accumulators. Capacitor torpedoes are really steam torpedoes. When you consider the Honorverse as a historical sailing analog with tech innovation trees, it makes sense. After steam flask torpedoes, the next innovation was self powered steam torpedoes with internal heated power creating the steam. For awhile, steam guns were investigated, and as a distributed power system, steam accumulators were near powered systems to power turret mounts and other powered systems in case main power was cut off. And how many people were burned in steam accidents...

Plasma = steam power....

penny wrote:
When this new project protecting the junction is complete, what do you think the disposition of the forts will be? Will they be repositioned?


P.S. You have previously expressed distaste for the currently accepted use of the word decimate (at least on one other occasion) and I understand your objection. But as I've pointed out on many occasions, language is not meant to be a static entity. It is ever changing. Evolving like the denizens that use it. A philosopher wrote in one of her books that "language learns itself."

I also detest the current use of the word "gay." My grandmother used to refer to me as a very gay little boy. Always happy. Nothing ever got me down. I guess in, or within, context words can retain their original meaning.

Theemile wrote:

penny wrote:
When this new project protecting the junction is complete, what do you think the disposition of the forts will be? Will they be repositioned?


P.S. You have previously expressed distaste for the currently accepted use of the word decimate (at least on one other occasion) and I understand your objection. But as I've pointed out on many occasions, language is not meant to be a static entity. It is ever changing. Evolving like the denizens that use it. A philosopher wrote in one of her books that "language learns itself."

I also detest the current use of the word "gay." My grandmother used to refer to me as a very gay little boy. Always happy. Nothing ever got me down. I guess in, or within, context words can retain their original meaning.

Personally, I doubt many forts will be moved or retired. All the current Junction forts are of a newer design and the older man-power intensive forts had all been retired once all termini were in RMN or friendly hands. The Forts also are LAC bases, and have bubble shielding, Apollo and pod cores, so they can also battle with fleets arriving from Hyper, where the IWEDs are only close in energy based systems and will be susceptible to missile fire. The IDEWs will replace mine fields surrounding the emergence lanes (hopefully lowering maintenance requirements), even though those have also been replaced by MDM Pods.

It's just a slow conversion to longer ranged, more lethal weapons as they come available. Besides, being Grasers, they can be placed much further from the emergence lanes than laserhead minefields and be less (or not at all) susceptible to the proximity blasts from mines and missiles shooting laserheads into the lanes.

tlb wrote:I was thinking of the micro fusion reactor and only bring it up at time of attack to save fuel. The beamed power would just keep capacitors topped off and power communications etc.

penny wrote:Since the platforms would be much longer ranged than mines (and safer for allied vessels incidentally) I assumed the forts would be moved further out at least to the extended range of the platforms. After all, I assume the forts are placed at their current range for a reason. But it might not be a good idea to totally rely on the platforms with an opponent who is stealthier than yourself. We all agree that proximity kills can ruin a sea of platforms.

Sharks destroying a sea of platforms? Wait! What?