Re: [GZG] More advanced screens

I agree on pretty much all that. I was trying to remember how it
worked, so I looked it up. From "Building the Mote in G-d's Eye" (page
458 of the paperback):

"Our second key technological building block was the Langston Field,
which absorbs and stores energy in proportion to the fourth power of
incoming particle energy: that is, a slow-moving object can penetrate
it, but the faster it's moving (or the hotter it is) the more readily
it is absorbed.

(In fact it's not a simple fourth-power equation, but our readers
surely don't need third-order differential equations for amusement.)"

Bad assumption. :)

Here's a link to the original beginning to Mote:
http://www.webscription.net/chapters/0671741926/0671741926.htm

OK so here you see how beams and SMLs interact in a combat
environment. Lasers give you the most power pumped into the enemy's
Field over time. Torpedoes give you disposable burst damage. So you
use your lasers to get an enemy into the middle colors, and then when
his field is holding alot of power, try to score some burn-throughs
with your torpedoes. In this fight, the Defiant used torpedoes at the
beginning also, probably because he knew he was outgunned and wasn't
going to hold anything back. Notice that Lenin did much the same
thing.

On Tue, Jun 3, 2008 at 12:30 PM, Phillip Atcliffe
<atcliffe@ntlworld.com> wrote:

> That's fourth power of the velocity of an incoming particle -- so
> non-photonic radiation from a nuke (which is what the torpedoes are)
gets
> absorbed more readily the hotter it is. Since we know that the Field
absorbs
> photons, too, we can assume that the rest of the radiation is absorbed
as
> well.

> Robert has a point: the only ship weapons that we've seen are laser
"guns"
> and torpedoes with thermonuke warheads, and nothing punches through
the
> Field the way that, say, a needle beam does FT screens. In fact, most
FT
> weapons don't really match up with CD/EoM-style space combat, and it's
an
> interesting question as to whether something like a K-gun (and related
> technologies) would be effective against a Field-equipped ship. My
first
> instinct is to limit EoM-type ships to standard beams and SMLs and/or
SMRs,
> with PDSs to cope with (some of) the salvo missiles.

> I agree. With only the example of Lenin against MacArthur and the
battles
> around the Mote in TGH to go by, one gets the impression that ship
combat is
> a fairly slow business when both combatants have Field technology,
> punctuated by brief periods of mad activity when a burn-through is
achieved
> and some actual damage is done -- both in terms of change in ship's
status
> and as DC parties madly rip out and replace damaged system modules.
>
> In fact, I do wonder why the primary armament of the Imperial ships is
their
> lasers; again, given the examples of combat that we see in the books,
I'd be
> inclined to reduce the number of guns in favour of a lot more
torpedoes, as
> they are the weapons that seem to cause the most burn-throughs. Lasers
pump
> energy into the Field, but that does nothing to the target until it
> overloads the Field or unless a tight enough focus can be maintained
to
> cause a hot spot and burn-through. Okay, the supply situation is an
obvious
> counter-argument, as is the use of the lasers in combat against ground
> forces and installations, but I'd think a Torpedo Battleship, intended
for
> Fleet operations, would be a useful capital ship.
>
> Of course, that all changes when the thermal superconductor comes into
use;
> then, it's a case of pump as much energy into an opponent's Field as
quickly
> as you can, to overload it completely. Burn-throughs don't damage the
> target, they just make it hotter -- right up until the superconductor
fails,
> and then it's fried spaceship time!
>
> Phil
>
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-- 
Robert Mayberry
(678) 984-5113
Robert.Mayberry@gmail.com

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