Beating up Frontier Fleet, mercilessly

kzt wrote:Considering that a non-pod layer has no ability to supply huge amounts of power to a pod without using a cable, how do you think they normally get powered up when you decide to hang some off the side of a random DD?

Consider home fleet at BoM. They loaded up something like 20,000 pods in something like 15 minutes. How did they power them up?

Home Fleet was in orbit around Sphinx, as were the missile pods the SDs loaded up with. This suggests that a certain percentage of the missile pods were in ready status with their fusion reactors and control electronics active (pods ready for pickup and use), and a certain percentage down for maintenance (refuel, repair).

Starting up a pod is simple. Start the fusion. Where does it get its power from? Starting capacitors. Where do they get their power from? Off board or if onboard: On-board chemical reactor. Where does it get its power from? A battery.

Why on earth would anyone use a Tractor to hold a pod onto a ship for umpteen weeks? Any nincompoop can design a hook on a ship said pod grabs. Only power necessary is for maintaining said battery or just a direct POWER CORD to initiate the capacitors to start the fusion plant to fire the pod.

Relax wrote:Only power necessary is for maintaining said battery or just a direct POWER CORD to initiate the capacitors to start the fusion plant to fire the pod.

Don't even need a power cord; a simple tube from the reactor-mass fueling point to the pod to provide fuel for the pods' reactors would suffice.

Of course, installing ejector racks such as the IAN used for their half-pod installations on conventional BCs, complete with power and control wiring would be even better to give older ships fusion-MDM/DDM capability.

Weird Harold wrote:

Relax wrote:Only power necessary is for maintaining said battery or just a direct POWER CORD to initiate the capacitors to start the fusion plant to fire the pod.

Don't even need a power cord; a simple tube from the reactor-mass fueling point to the pod to provide fuel for the pods' reactors would suffice.

Of course, installing ejector racks such as the IAN used for their half-pod installations on conventional BCs, complete with power and control wiring would be even better to give older ships fusion-MDM/DDM capability.

Your idea of a safe simple system distributing a small amount of power is a plasma conduit?> You have got to be kidding or utterly naive of basic engineering principles.

Relax wrote:Your idea of a safe simple system distributing a small amount of power is a plasma conduit?> You have got to be kidding or utterly naive of basic engineering principles.

No.

My idea is a small tube of hydrogen or other "reactor mass." No larger than required to keep a pod's fuel reserve topped off as the internal fusion reactor powers the tractor built into a flat-pack pod.

The power connection for an ejector rack could be a plasma conduit -- as used for energy torpedoes and charging plasma capacitor powered missiles and pods. It would NOT have to be a plasma conduit, it could be any form of power the Honorverse uses as long as it is sufficient to jump start a micro-fusion reactor.

I'm no techi, but one thinks of a pilot light to initiate the process of lighting a furnace. One starts the pilot with a spark. Could it be that a spark would initiate the process of pwering up a missile pod. That might be initiated by sending a microwave signal to a spark generater in the pod itself. No power cord needed at all....

Don

n7axw wrote:I'm no techi, but one thinks of a pilot light to initiate the process of lighting a furnace. One starts the pilot with a spark. Could it be that a spark would initiate the process of pwering up a missile pod. That might be initiated by sending a microwave signal to a spark generater in the pod itself. No power cord needed at all....

Don

What you need a power cord is to have some way of running the tractors in the pod over the long run, because tractors in the pod are the only possibly way you can attach the pods to the hull.

n7axw wrote:I'm no techi, but one thinks of a pilot light to initiate the process of lighting a furnace. One starts the pilot with a spark.

Don

What is space?

What does a spark BURN?

Weird Harold wrote:

Relax wrote:Your idea of a safe simple system distributing a small amount of power is a plasma conduit?> You have got to be kidding or utterly naive of basic engineering principles.

No.

My idea is a small tube of hydrogen or other "reactor mass." No larger than required to keep a pod's fuel reserve topped off as the internal fusion reactor powers the tractor built into a flat-pack pod.

The power connection for an ejector rack could be a plasma conduit -- as used for energy torpedoes and charging plasma capacitor powered missiles and pods. It would NOT have to be a plasma conduit, it could be any form of power the Honorverse uses as long as it is sufficient to jump start a micro-fusion reactor.

It depends on local technology. That may be the best solution.

Relax wrote:

n7axw wrote:I'm no techi, but one thinks of a pilot light to initiate the process of lighting a furnace. One starts the pilot with a spark.

Don

What is space?

What does a spark BURN?

It may not have been a good illustration, but applying what I was trying to illustrate was that like a furnace which can be ignited by a single spark, perhaps the fusion plant aboard a pod might be started by some sort of initiator to power up that was set into motion by a signal from the shop. There may not be a need for power cords from the ship at all. And if the pod can provide the pwer to launch the missiles, why not also the tractors?

Don