Attacking Darius:

cthia wrote:This begs the question, do Forts always have their wedges and sidewalls up?

I think I recall reading somewhere that the Forts are always manned and ready to go. I think textev says the wedges are always up. But are the sidewalls always up as well?

A protocol of always keeping the sidewalls up will gobble up sprockets, sockets, cogs and nodes like Pac Man chomping on bits. Add to that the same protocol of always keeping the sidewalls up as well must have the Forts performing an ever sychronized dance of rotating fresh stock.

That may be yet another chink in the link, if wedges and walls are down while the Forts are retiring.

The fort is normally protected by a spherical bubble-wall that allows shooting in all directions; it only shifts to a wedge and sidewalls when it needs to move.

tlb wrote:

cthia wrote:This begs the question, do Forts always have their wedges and sidewalls up?

I think I recall reading somewhere that the Forts are always manned and ready to go. I think textev says the wedges are always up. But are the sidewalls always up as well?

A protocol of always keeping the sidewalls up will gobble up sprockets, sockets, cogs and nodes like Pac Man chomping on bits. Add to that the same protocol of always keeping the sidewalls up as well must have the Forts performing an ever sychronized dance of rotating fresh stock.

That may be yet another chink in the link, if wedges and walls are down while the Forts are retiring.

The fort is normally protected by a spherical bubble-wall that allows shooting in all directions; it only shifts to a wedge and sidewalls when it needs to move.

When it shifts to a wedge/wall combo, is there a lapse in coverage?

cthia wrote:This begs the question, do Forts always have their wedges and sidewalls up?

I think I recall reading somewhere that the Forts are always manned and ready to go. I think textev says the wedges are always up. But are the sidewalls always up as well?

A protocol of always keeping the sidewalls up will gobble up sprockets, sockets, cogs and nodes like Pac Man chomping on bits. Add to that the same protocol of always keeping the sidewalls up as well must have the Forts performing an ever sychronized dance of rotating fresh stock.

That may be yet another chink in the link, if wedges and walls are down while the Forts are retiring.

tlb wrote:The fort is normally protected by a spherical bubble-wall that allows shooting in all directions; it only shifts to a wedge and sidewalls when it needs to move.

cthia wrote:When it shifts to a wedge/wall combo, is there a lapse in coverage?

I believe there has to be; because I do not think the wedge can go up, until the bubble-wall is down.

If you are thinking about an opportunity for an LD; I think it would make more sense to sneak Silver Bullets in, one for each fort, waiting for that transition.

tlb wrote:

cthia wrote:This begs the question, do Forts always have their wedges and sidewalls up?

I think I recall reading somewhere that the Forts are always manned and ready to go. I think textev says the wedges are always up. But are the sidewalls always up as well?

A protocol of always keeping the sidewalls up will gobble up sprockets, sockets, cogs and nodes like Pac Man chomping on bits. Add to that the same protocol of always keeping the sidewalls up as well must have the Forts performing an ever sychronized dance of rotating fresh stock.

That may be yet another chink in the link, if wedges and walls are down while the Forts are retiring.

The fort is normally protected by a spherical bubble-wall that allows shooting in all directions; it only shifts to a wedge and sidewalls when it needs to move.

Though I believe it occasionally needs to take its spherical sidewall offline for maintenance on that generator. But I'm not sure if that's a twice a month thing, once a quarter, trice a year, or what.

However I'm sure the forts stagger that, so no more than one fort at a time would be in maintenance mode.

tlb wrote:The fort is normally protected by a spherical bubble-wall that allows shooting in all directions; it only shifts to a wedge and sidewalls when it needs to move.

Jonathan_S wrote:Though I believe it occasionally needs to take its spherical sidewall offline for maintenance on that generator. But I'm not sure if that's a twice a month thing, once a quarter, trice a year, or what.

However I'm sure the forts stagger that, so no more than one fort at a time would be in maintenance mode.

I have seen where RFC talks about a ship having multiple sidewall generators. Could a fort have multiple bubble-wall generators; so that a wall would still be up, while maintenance on a generator took place?

tlb wrote:

tlb wrote:The fort is normally protected by a spherical bubble-wall that allows shooting in all directions; it only shifts to a wedge and sidewalls when it needs to move.

Jonathan_S wrote:Though I believe it occasionally needs to take its spherical sidewall offline for maintenance on that generator. But I'm not sure if that's a twice a month thing, once a quarter, trice a year, or what.

However I'm sure the forts stagger that, so no more than one fort at a time would be in maintenance mode.

I have seen where RFC talks about a ship having multiple sidewall generators. Could a fort have multiple bubble-wall generators; so that a wall would still be up, while maintenance on a generator took place?

Ships definitely have multiple sidewall generators to cover an entire flank. LACs and maybe even many DDs might not have any redundancy in them; losing even one generator might force them to weaken their sidewall by overextending the remaining generators' coverage area (and losing two might mean they can't maintain full sidewall coverage at all). SDs have the most redundancy, so they can potentially lose multiple generators (depending on exactly which ones) before they have to weaken their sidewall, or have gaps open in it.

I had the vague impression that spherical sidewall generators wouldn't be able to be redundant -- but now that you ask I can't think of anything specific in the text about it.

RFC does say they're large enough that adding one to a warship would cost it weapons and magazine space; but just because they're large doesn't necessarily mean you can't fit a pair of them into something as large as a fort...


Maybe you are onto something and they can have a second spherical sidewall generator to use while performing maintenance on the first.

tlb wrote:

cthia wrote:This begs the question, do Forts always have their wedges and sidewalls up?

I think I recall reading somewhere that the Forts are always manned and ready to go. I think textev says the wedges are always up. But are the sidewalls always up as well?

A protocol of always keeping the sidewalls up will gobble up sprockets, sockets, cogs and nodes like Pac Man chomping on bits. Add to that the same protocol of always keeping the sidewalls up as well must have the Forts performing an ever sychronized dance of rotating fresh stock.

That may be yet another chink in the link, if wedges and walls are down while the Forts are retiring.

The fort is normally protected by a spherical bubble-wall that allows shooting in all directions; it only shifts to a wedge and sidewalls when it needs to move.

Jonathan'S wrote:Though I believe it occasionally needs to take its spherical sidewall offline for maintenance on that generator. But I'm not sure if that's a twice a month thing, once a quarter, trice a year, or what.

However I'm sure the forts stagger that, so no more than one fort at a time would be in maintenance mode.

With so many forts and some of the very long maintenance times, scheduled repairs would become backlogged very quickly leading to a state of disrepair.

tlb wrote:

tlb wrote:The fort is normally protected by a spherical bubble-wall that allows shooting in all directions; it only shifts to a wedge and sidewalls when it needs to move.

Jonathan_S wrote:Though I believe it occasionally needs to take its spherical sidewall offline for maintenance on that generator. But I'm not sure if that's a twice a month thing, once a quarter, trice a year, or what.

However I'm sure the forts stagger that, so no more than one fort at a time would be in maintenance mode.

I have seen where RFC talks about a ship having multiple sidewall generators. Could a fort have multiple bubble-wall generators; so that a wall would still be up, while maintenance on a generator took place?

Jonathan_S wrote:Ships definitely have multiple sidewall generators to cover an entire flank. LACs and maybe even many DDs might not have any redundancy in them; losing even one generator might force them to weaken their sidewall by overextending the remaining generators' coverage area (and losing two might mean they can't maintain full sidewall coverage at all). SDs have the most redundancy, so they can potentially lose multiple generators (depending on exactly which ones) before they have to weaken their sidewall, or have gaps open in it.

I had the vague impression that spherical sidewall generators wouldn't be able to be redundant -- but now that you ask I can't think of anything specific in the text about it.

RFC does say they're large enough that adding one to a warship would cost it weapons and magazine space; but just because they're large doesn't necessarily mean you can't fit a pair of them into something as large as a fort...


Maybe you are onto something and they can have a second spherical sidewall generator to use while performing maintenance on the first.

Unless there are serious repairs which require a specialized ship in close to the surface of the fort?

Besides, how likely will such an intensely charged energy field not wreak havoc with instrumentation outside the fort.

cthia wrote:This begs the question, do Forts always have their wedges and sidewalls up?

.

Honor once mentioned that the forts go through a readiness cycle where they are in close to the WHJ and are supposed to be fully operational and ready for immediate action, and to where they were much further out and doing maintenance etc. She still had suspicions about how ready the forts would be to an actual 'this is that day' event. But that was the crew, not the fort's systems.

Basically, keeping your system working is a logistical problem. The RMN plans to replace ship nodes and do other engineering systems repair during major maintenance work, which is scheduled out for years. This is also what the production of the replacement parts is based on. This is not the rate that is needed if you keep the wedge up all the time or abuse it. This is based on x hours of operation per year, of which y will be at B power level, etc.

If you wear out nodes in 1 year vs 5 years you need new nodes and a maintenance overhaul. Does the RMN have 5x the expected overhaul facilities? The answer is, of course, no. Nor do they have the parts to sustain that. The parts are probably easier to come up with than the facilities and staff to repair hundreds of warships, but without both...

If a fort is supposed to be running with the bubble up all the time the wear will be part of the logistics plan and either they durability of the system will be sufficient to reach scheduled maintenance intervals or provision will be provided to rapidly repair/swap out on-site the components.

It's operating as designed, so it's fine. Until someone blew up everyone making spare parts, but David said, 'never mind' so that's all cool.

[quote="tlb"

Insanely, the airplane had a fission reactor. According to Wikipedia, the shielding problem was not completely solved (particularly in case of a crash):

One inadequately solved design problem was the need for heavy shielding to protect the crew and those on the ground from acute radiation syndrome; other potential problems included dealing with crashes

[/quote]

A couple of years ago we visited the site of ERB-1 (Experimental Breeder Reactor 1) which is near the National Laboratory in Idaho. Outside- of the visitor center in the building enclosing the -still very radioactive but heavily shielded and "safe" for tours- =--they had pieces of the experimental aircraft to be powered by a reactor....they were "large". The information for the aircraft essentialy said they determined it wasn't going to be effective due to weight and other challenges dealing with the radiation involved in the airplane power system. So there are some very big bits and pieces of prototype aircraft sitting out in the weather. And, interestingly of to go along with radiation of ERB -1, there was a sign on the former guard hut/small admin building for ERB-1 warning of probable continued Hanta virus problems with the small building due to rodent presence. Sigh.