Insanity: Screening elements in the HV

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?

But another concern arises if platforms are seeded with reactors like tlb suggested. Beyond the extra maintenance and the fuel, what is the startup time of reactors from a cold start?

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.

At any rate, could the forts actually benefit from relocating them a bit further when considering a defense against warships from hyper?

Micro Fusion Reactors don't start up on their own, they are spun up as part of the "launch" process from their tender when plasma is introduced into the reaction chamber - they then run until they run out of fuel. In a warship, this reactor ignition sequence happens in less than 18 seconds (the cycle time of a Mk 16 launcher).

If those platforms had their own reactors, they would sit there at standby with hot reactors until their fuel was expended. Then a tender would come over, replace the wear widget (we don't know what it is other than it's easily carried in bulk by ships and easily replaced), then the fuel is replaced, fresh plasma is released into the reactor from the "Extension Cord", and then the tender trundles on to the next platform, to rinse and repeat for years on end.

The Forts are probably currently sitting in the far 1/2 of Graser range (500K-1M km) or beyond from the emergence lanes. They don't want to be Too far - they need to have good sensor reads on what is happening at the junction, and be close enough to control the remote systems and react to any possible "issue" (Like your Spider ship appearing by the emergence lane with an Uber Eats order.) In short, they want to be protected by distance, but close enough to have a short OOD loop.

They also want redundancy in case the unthinkable happens, and they also cycle the forts between hot and cold cycles where watch is passed from fort to fort, so crews don't have to be 100% wired on caffeine and alert while having their finger poised 1" above the "Fire Everything!!" button for endless watch cycles.

Also, The resonance zone around the junction is only so large (~1M KM iirc). If the Forts stray outside this zone, a hyper attacker can jump right on top of them inside energy range. So forts don't want to be too far out... but don't want to be Too close.

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.

Theemile wrote:Micro Fusion Reactors don't start up on their own, they are spun up as part of the "launch" process from their tender when plasma is introduced into the reaction chamber - they then run until they run out of fuel. In a warship, this reactor ignition sequence happens in less than 18 seconds (the cycle time of a Mk 16 launcher).

If those platforms had their own reactors, they would sit there at standby with hot reactors until their fuel was expended. Then a tender would come over, replace the wear widget (we don't know what it is other than it's easily carried in bulk by ships and easily replaced), then the fuel is replaced, fresh plasma is released into the reactor from the "Extension Cord", and then the tender trundles on to the next platform, to rinse and repeat for years on end.

I am embarrassed to have to defend an idea that we already know is not viable, because the output of anything less than a full size fusion reactor is insufficient to allow sustained graser firing during a combat situation.

However, here I go. The micro reactor would not have to be active prior to combat, because the suggestion was that the platform had full capacitors maintained by beamed power. When the forts went to full alert as combat was imminent, then plasma from a capacitor could be injected into the reactor to initiate it. Once it was active, it could replace the plasma used for startup.

So outside of combat, the only fuel use would be to top off the capacitors. The tenders would not need to inject plasma; because in this scenario the reactor was incorrectly assumed to be able to fill the capacitors itself before shutting down. The tenders would only refuel and perform required maintenance.

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Now that we know that cannot work, we have the scenario as described in UH, where the capacitors are kept topped off by beamed power and have sufficient power to supply about six shots in combat.

Outside of combat, what you said is true: "Then a tender would come over, replace the wear widget (we don't know what it is other than it's easily carried in bulk by ships and easily replaced), then the fuel is replaced, fresh plasma is released into the reactor from the "Extension Cord", and then the tender trundles on to the next platform, to rinse and repeat for years on end". The fuel in THIS case is needed solely by the plasma generator to keep the capacitors topped off.

tlb wrote:

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.

Theemile wrote:Micro Fusion Reactors don't start up on their own, they are spun up as part of the "launch" process from their tender when plasma is introduced into the reaction chamber - they then run until they run out of fuel. In a warship, this reactor ignition sequence happens in less than 18 seconds (the cycle time of a Mk 16 launcher).

If those platforms had their own reactors, they would sit there at standby with hot reactors until their fuel was expended. Then a tender would come over, replace the wear widget (we don't know what it is other than it's easily carried in bulk by ships and easily replaced), then the fuel is replaced, fresh plasma is released into the reactor from the "Extension Cord", and then the tender trundles on to the next platform, to rinse and repeat for years on end.

I am embarrassed to have to defend an idea that we already know is not viable, because the output of anything less than a full size fusion reactor is insufficient to allow sustained graser firing during a combat situation.

However, here I go. The micro reactor would not have to be active prior to combat, because the suggestion was that the platform had full capacitors maintained by beamed power. When the forts went to full alert as combat was imminent, then plasma from a capacitor could be injected into the reactor to initiate it. Once it was active, it could replace the plasma used for startup.

So outside of combat, the only fuel use would be to top off the capacitors. The tenders would not need to inject plasma; because in this scenario the reactor was incorrectly assumed to be able to fill the capacitors itself before shutting down. The tenders would only refuel and perform required maintenance.

===========================================================================

Now that we know that cannot work, we have the scenario as described in UH, where the capacitors are kept topped off by beamed power and have sufficient power to supply about six shots in combat.

Outside of combat, what you said is true: "Then a tender would come over, replace the wear widget (we don't know what it is other than it's easily carried in bulk by ships and easily replaced), then the fuel is replaced, fresh plasma is released into the reactor from the "Extension Cord", and then the tender trundles on to the next platform, to rinse and repeat for years on end". The fuel in THIS case is needed solely by the plasma generator to keep the capacitors topped off.

Well, we do know that the micro fusion reactor in a standard Pod can run at standby levels for ~30 days before it needs refurbishment, and versions with longer lifespans are available for true system defense pods and long life system arrays - the ones we are seeing is the uber compact ship born hardware. I would not rule out using the longer lived reactor version in an emplacement like this.

But let's say even a standard micro fusion reactor just doesn't have the output to sustain big graser fire... you could have ...say... 5 microfusion reactors in a cluster working together - have a single one whose job is to run the satellite on a daily basis, then dump in's plasma into the other 4 to start them up and to run the graser for 10 minutes.

How do we know this will work?
1) The Microfusion reactor in a pod spins up the reactors in 9-14 missiles on it's own as part of the missile firing process. So we know 1 reactor can kick start at least 14 others at once.

2) We don't know what the output of a standard microfusion reactor is or what it's exact settings are. But we can assume the highest power draw is probably in a missile, and we know it can sustain a wedge for at least 9 minutes, have energy for a coast stage of 30 minutes or more, and still have a power budget to run it's ECM and/or warhead. On the opposite side, we have a 30 day standby, then enough remaining power to spinup 14 reactors and fire those 14 missiles. (Without the need to spin up reactors and launch missiles, the life of a reactor at standby (or near standby) levels is probably multiple months.)

Now, can 4 microFusion reactors power a Graser, well, your guess is as good as mine.

Theemile wrote:
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The Forts are probably currently sitting in the far 1/2 of Graser range (500K-1M km) or beyond from the emergence lanes. They don't want to be Too far - they need to have good sensor reads on what is happening at the junction, and be close enough to control the remote systems and react to any possible "issue" (Like your Spider ship appearing by the emergence lane with an Uber Eats order.) In short, they want to be protected by distance, but close enough to have a short OOD loop.

They also want redundancy in case the unthinkable happens, and they also cycle the forts between hot and cold cycles where watch is passed from fort to fort, so crews don't have to be 100% wired on caffeine and alert while having their finger poised 1" above the "Fire Everything!!" button for endless watch cycles.

Also, The resonance zone around the junction is only so large (~1M KM iirc). If the Forts stray outside this zone, a hyper attacker can jump right on top of them inside energy range. So forts don't want to be too far out... but don't want to be Too close.

I just found this relevant quote in UH

But there was another excellent reason battles were seldom fought outside hyper-limits: any starship outside a limit could translate into hyper any time it chose to. And because no one ever willingly fought a battle he didn’t expect to win, the weaker side in any confrontation outside a hyper-limit always chose to translate into hyper before the stronger side could engage it.
Unless there was some reason it couldn’t, that was.
That was the true reason for the massive fortifications covering the Manticoran Wormhole Junction. They were designed to annihilate anyone foolish enough to attempt an attack through one of the Junction’s secondary termini, of course, but in addition, they were intended to provide sufficient concentrated combat power to stand up against almost any conceivable attack through hyper-space.

Theemile wrote:How do we know this will work?
1) The Microfusion reactor in a pod spins up the reactors in 9-14 missiles on it's own as part of the missile firing process. So we know 1 reactor can kick start at least 14 others at once.

Actually we don't know that it fires them up simultaneously.
Nor do we know that it is the sole source of firing all of them up.

It could fire them up sequentially over time -- pods left on long deployment generally have plenty of heads-up before they're launched - and missile reactors at basically standby waiting to launch should have lots of spare endurance (and if necessary pods could presumably carry spare fuel to top up missile fule tanks if that were needed). And pods launched in the heat of combat for (near) immediate missile launch, by forts or podlayers, could have all their missile reactors spun up on the launch rails using plasma from the ship's vastly larger and more powerful reactors

Or it's possible that a pod uses a cascading start-up; where the pod's reactor fires up 1 missile, then those two reactors each fire up 2 more, then those 4 reactors each fire up 4 more, etc.

All we know is that starting with just the pod's reactor a pod of missile, over some unspecified time, is able to get all the missile's reactors online. That's certainly not the same thing as knowing its reactor can simultaneously jump-start up to 14 other reactors.

Jonathan_S wrote:

Theemile wrote:How do we know this will work?
1) The Microfusion reactor in a pod spins up the reactors in 9-14 missiles on it's own as part of the missile firing process. So we know 1 reactor can kick start at least 14 others at once.

Actually we don't know that it fires them up simultaneously.
Nor do we know that it is the sole source of firing all of them up.

It could fire them up sequentially over time -- pods left on long deployment generally have plenty of heads-up before they're launched - and missile reactors at basically standby waiting to launch should have lots of spare endurance (and if necessary pods could presumably carry spare fuel to top up missile fule tanks if that were needed). And pods launched in the heat of combat for (near) immediate missile launch, by forts or podlayers, could have all their missile reactors spun up on the launch rails using plasma from the ship's vastly larger and more powerful reactors

Or it's possible that a pod uses a cascading start-up; where the pod's reactor fires up 1 missile, then those two reactors each fire up 2 more, then those 4 reactors each fire up 4 more, etc.

All we know is that starting with just the pod's reactor a pod of missile, over some unspecified time, is able to get all the missile's reactors online. That's certainly not the same thing as knowing its reactor can simultaneously jump-start up to 14 other reactors.

Pods are just dumped and fired. Even assuming powering missiles sequentially, pods are dumped in 12 second salvos, and are started just prior to launch (so the microreactors are not running inside the ship any longer than necessary. So what's the longest time between a Pod microreactor spinning up and a missile launch? 24 seconds? so the spin up for all the missiles needs to be inside of that period - which is still not a long time.

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?

But another concern arises if platforms are seeded with reactors like tlb suggested. Beyond the extra maintenance and the fuel, what is the startup time of reactors from a cold start?

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.

At any rate, could the forts actually benefit from relocating them a bit further when considering a defense against warships from hyper?

Theemile wrote:Micro Fusion Reactors don't start up on their own, they are spun up as part of the "launch" process from their tender when plasma is introduced into the reaction chamber - they then run until they run out of fuel. In a warship, this reactor ignition sequence happens in less than 18 seconds (the cycle time of a Mk 16 launcher).

If those platforms had their own reactors, they would sit there at standby with hot reactors until their fuel was expended. Then a tender would come over, replace the wear widget (we don't know what it is other than it's easily carried in bulk by ships and easily replaced), then the fuel is replaced, fresh plasma is released into the reactor from the "Extension Cord", and then the tender trundles on to the next platform, to rinse and repeat for years on end.

IINM, tlb was suggesting that the platforms have a reactor as well as a plasma capacitor to jump start the reactor, in the place of a tender. As he stated, wouldn't that prevent the platform from having to sit on standby with a hot reactor? Thus, saving fuel and maintenance? If startup time is only 18 seconds, why is there a need for a hot reactor? I think he was also suggesting that the plasma capacitor to jump start the reactor to be kept topped off using beamed power.

BTW, do we know how long a reactor will run before its fuel is depleted?


Late edit: Could someone tell me the size of a missile pod? Thanks in advance.

Theemile wrote:

Jonathan_S wrote:Actually we don't know that it fires them up simultaneously.
Nor do we know that it is the sole source of firing all of them up.

It could fire them up sequentially over time -- pods left on long deployment generally have plenty of heads-up before they're launched - and missile reactors at basically standby waiting to launch should have lots of spare endurance (and if necessary pods could presumably carry spare fuel to top up missile fule tanks if that were needed). And pods launched in the heat of combat for (near) immediate missile launch, by forts or podlayers, could have all their missile reactors spun up on the launch rails using plasma from the ship's vastly larger and more powerful reactors

Or it's possible that a pod uses a cascading start-up; where the pod's reactor fires up 1 missile, then those two reactors each fire up 2 more, then those 4 reactors each fire up 4 more, etc.

All we know is that starting with just the pod's reactor a pod of missile, over some unspecified time, is able to get all the missile's reactors online. That's certainly not the same thing as knowing its reactor can simultaneously jump-start up to 14 other reactors.

Pods are just dumped and fired. Even assuming powering missiles sequentially, pods are dumped in 12 second salvos, and are started just prior to launch (so the microreactors are not running inside the ship any longer than necessary. So what's the longest time between a Pod microreactor spinning up and a missile launch? 24 seconds? so the spin up for all the missiles needs to be inside of that period - which is still not a long time.

But we don't know that pod dumped for immediate firing work the same way pods dumped for much later use do.

That's why I specifically mentioned that pods that are going to be fired immediately might have all their missile reactors spun up by the ship right before the pod is rolled.


If the pod's onboard reactor only needs to be used for drop and wait scenarios then it wouldn't need to be capable of spinning up all the missiles in seconds. (It might still be capable of that; we don't know -- I'm just saying that that wouldn't necessarily be a requirement)

penny wrote:BTW, do we know how long a reactor will run before its fuel is depleted?

That'd rather depend on the size of its fuel tank and how high you have the reactor throttled. There's some moderately high minimum fuel consumption needed just to keep the fusion going, but ramping up to full power will suck down fuel faster and so give you fewer minutes of run time.

The microfusion reactor on a Ghost Rider RD can operate the drone for weeks; but those RDs are a lot bigger than a missile and probably devote a greater percentage of their volume to fuel than the missile does.

OTOH a missile probably has fuel for no more than an hour. (As even leaving some standby and the longest ballistic segment plausible that should still leave a significant margin -- keeping in mind that a maximum of 9 minutes of that is with the MDM's drives active)

Jonathan_S wrote:But we don't know that pod dumped for immediate firing work the same way pods dumped for much later use do.

That's why I specifically mentioned that pods that are going to be fired immediately might have all their missile reactors spun up by the ship right before the pod is rolled.


If the pod's onboard reactor only needs to be used for drop and wait scenarios then it wouldn't need to be capable of spinning up all the missiles in seconds. (It might still be capable of that; we don't know -- I'm just saying that that wouldn't necessarily be a requirement)

I'm not certain why the RMN would want 2 different launch profiles, But I'm willing to concede that we don't have data supporting one scenario over the other, and it is plausable.

Still, drop and wait may still require fairly quick fire times. I don't see energizing a pod's missile reactors taking more than a minute - probably less.