Some thoughts having watched Andromeda

[Eternal_Freedom]

He blew up a planet? When was that?

[Thanas]

Season 3 episode, Point of the Spear.

[Xon]

That means the Honorverse might not even be able to get a sensor lock (could somebody more knowledgeable on the Honorverse comment on this?). Because the Andromeda is essentially manipulating its own gravity constantly (theory is that is how they achieve that magic accel/deccel speed). Would Honorverse gravity sensors even be able to lock on to such a target? Because if they are not and the Honorverse has otherwise ranges of less than a light-second, then that would leave them blind and reaction time of about 1.2 seconds before a missile salvo hits.

Honorverse gravity sensors work against all thier own gravity generation technology. There is a section where Honor is on an assault shuttle with the artificial-gravity & inertia dampeners turned off flying a tree top-ish level to avoid detection from an orbiting space station when assaulting a prison camp.

[Xon]

I find it really hard to believe that Honorverse can shrug of that many missiles, resulting in that much firepower. Heck, in one episode Andromeda fired over 20 GT worth of missiles at one target.

Honorverse wedge, sidewall and particle fields are all standing gravity waves generated by technobabble effect dervived from their FTL system. First generation sidewall had a field strength of 100000 gees at some arbitary point, and they control those sidewalls well enough to create millisecond-lasting windows for outbound weapons fire.

And what really screws the Honorverse here is that they essentially are blind here and have to react within seconds. AFAIK a wedge only protects one side of the ship. What with multiple salvos striking all sides of the ships?

Honoverse ships PD are completely computer controlled, so the reaction time isn't an issue if they have been cleared for battle. It's actually a plot point that the process of arming for battle takes upto 10-15 minutes or so as the sidewalls come up and the weapon systems come online.

The wedge protects both the top and bottem of the ship, with the sidewall protecting the sides. The front & back are generally only protected by particle fields and active-PD. Yes, even during normal operations the forward weapons are armed to fire on anything on a collision course that the particle fields can't tank or the ship can't easily avoid.

[PREDATOR490]

Any Andromeda ships may simply not work in another universe. Slipstream supposedly requires PRE-mapped points inorder to work. Dump them in another galaxy and they have to map out the slipstream routes which could easily take a long time to do.
Did they even do any mapping in the series beyond getting handed the pre-made maps or the 'magic' allows folks to end up where they are supposed to go.

Another unusual aspect of slipstream is the requirement of an organic pilot to guide a starship through the slipstream. At an intersection of pathways in slipstream space, both paths manifest the potentiality of being correct and incorrect. It's only when the pilot chooses a specific direction that this potentiality collapses and one path becomes right, and the other wrong. For reasons still not completely understood, organic beings tend to choose the correct paths, or more precisely, the very act of choosing makes the path they have chosen the correct one.

Since its discovery nearly 10,000 years ago by Vedran physicist Rochinda, the slipstream has connected the galaxies together. Slipstream is an extension of our reality, an additional dimension that's integrally intertwined with our own. The slipstream is a place where quantum connections are visible as cords, especially the large and strong connections like those between huge concentrations of matter such as planets or suns. A spaceship that enters the slipstream can harness the energy of these cords and ride them from one star system to another.

One interesting thing about moving through the slipstream is that travel time between points has very little to do with the distance actually traveled. If a pilot is lucky, and the stream unfolds just right, the ship could transit between galaxies in minutes. But put an unlucky pilot at the helm and the same trip could take weeks or even months.

Luckily for the cause of interstellar commerce and communication, the more a certain path is frequently traveled, the faster, easier and more predictable the journey becomes. As a result, frequently-traveled routes between major Commonwealth worlds -- Vedra to San-Ska-Re, for example -- are safe and convenient.

Slipstream seems unreliable based on this kind of description: Sure we see Andromeda do fine with a pilot that is supposedly exceptional.
How long will it take for your 'average pilot' to complete a journey ?

Slipstream routes in other galaxies would logically be less travelled, less predictable and slower with the likely destinations being fixed to systems that have planets and stars. Thus, hostile forces in the Andromeda verse should logically be able to hide in open space AWAY from slipstream concentrations and conduct attacks from an untouchable beachhead by Andromeda FTL.

Gonna be rather funny if a CW fleet jumps into another galaxy and scatters across unknown space in a thousand different directions getting lost with no idea how to get back home except do what Andromeda did and wander the slipstream for weeks / months / years.

Scenario 1:
*Wormhole opens*
GHC comes through and cant go anywhere except back home
Makes the situation a rather one sided affair

Scenario 2:
*Wormhole opens*
GHC comes through and randomly enters slipstream to godknows where
The ship could end up in the ass end of nowhere or fly straight into an enemy fortress

Scenario 3:
Andromda verse magically slipstreams into another galaxy populated by whoever the VS. is against
Ok... so the Andromeda verse folks know the destination to a single point in the other galaxy

Scenario 4:
Whoever the VS. is against makes it into the Andromeda verse

Scenarios 1 - 3 result in a bottleneck for both sides that can have forces deployed to secure either side.

Andromeda can defend their side at super long ranges and missile spam poor fuckers to death but when they go through the wormhole they are potentially screwed. Any defending force would logically sit at ranges within their own effective capabilities. Thus GHC comes out into a hail of turbolaser fire, photon torpedoes or whatever at the effective power of the defender.

Scenario 4: CW are less likely to deploy nova bombs when it will obliterate their own systems / fleets. Thus any attacker can potentially use the CW's squeemish nature against them. Naturally assuming everyone will hold their fire like Dylan did.

[Thanas]

Any Andromeda ships may simply not work in another universe. Slipstream supposedly requires PRE-mapped points inorder to work. Dump them in another galaxy and they have to map out the slipstream routes which could easily take a long time to do.

Yeah, usually I point that out myself in vs threads like these....

Did they even do any mapping in the series beyond getting handed the pre-made maps or the 'magic' allows folks to end up where they are supposed to go.

Mapping happened in the series, but by other groups than the Andromeda.

Slipstream seems unreliable based on this kind of description: Sure we see Andromeda do fine with a pilot that is supposedly exceptional.
How long will it take for your 'average pilot' to complete a journey ?

Slipstream routes in other galaxies would logically be less travelled, less predictable and slower with the likely destinations being fixed to systems that have planets and stars. Thus, hostile forces in the Andromeda verse should logically be able to hide in open space AWAY from slipstream concentrations and conduct attacks from an untouchable beachhead by Andromeda FTL.

Gonna be rather funny if a CW fleet jumps into another galaxy and scatters across unknown space in a thousand different directions getting lost with no idea how to get back home except do what Andromeda did and wander the slipstream for weeks / months / years.*snip scenarios*

I agree with all your scenarios. Any CW offensive fleet would have to establish a breachhead and then scout for a long time.

Scenario 4: CW are less likely to deploy nova bombs when it will obliterate their own systems / fleets. Thus any attacker can potentially use the CW's squeemish nature against them. Naturally assuming everyone will hold their fire like Dylan did.

Agreed. However, planets are evacuated ridiculously fast in this verse and there are certainly way less squeamish commanders than Dylan around. Any nietzchean wouldn't blink twice about it, nor would people like Admiral Stark. Dylan is a bit of a boy scout.

[Thanas]

Honoverse ships PD are completely computer controlled, so the reaction time isn't an issue if they have been cleared for battle. It's actually a plot point that the process of arming for battle takes upto 10-15 minutes or so as the sidewalls come up and the weapon systems come online.

Honorverse computers suck and are very predictable. And 10-15 minutes is quite a lot.

The wedge protects both the top and bottem of the ship, with the sidewall protecting the sides. The front & back are generally only protected by particle fields and active-PD. Yes, even during normal operations the forward weapons are armed to fire on anything on a collision course that the particle fields can't tank or the ship can't easily avoid.

So if I understand it right, the sidewall is the strongest point, with the wedge being controlled by the crew to reinforce areas of need?

[Batman]

Err-actually, the sidewalls are the weakest point of their defenses (well, other than the throat and kilt of the wedge, but at least for Manticorans that's the same thing these days), the wedges are by in-universe means utterly impenetrable.
And since when do Honorverse computers suck or are very predictable? I assume you're referring to Cardones figuring out Thunder of God's EW was on autopilot thanks to its operators being too stupid to operate it. Yes, it was predictable-to someone intimately familiar with the tactics and technology involved, against an opponent that had to use it on autopilot because them trying to manipulate it would have degraded performance.

[Mr Bean]

The Honorverse problem is that random is not really random for them and the CinC can spot the patterns in any 100% computer controlled system if they get enough combat data. The systems are semi-random to begin with and the human element that changes firing patterns or delays a salvo by .00059 seconds because of puny human reaction times throws Honorverse computers for a hit because they know the enemy can throw a salvo every 16.0391 seconds so when the salvo fires at 16.0533 seconds the anti-missiles it launched at 16.0388 are off course because they expected launches at that time stamp and not later, as well the Thunder of God EW's is caught short because Cardones makes the missiles do something dumb IE clustering up and shadowing each other which lets him use 18 or so missiles and decoy's act as cover for the two REAL nuke tipped missiles he's using all the other missiles as physical shields for. It's that kind of stupid human trick that Honorverse computers still can't do themselves.

Also note about wedge's and sidewalls.

Wedge's are described as hundreds of KM's apart and the ships balances between them like so

This is not a perfect picture mostly because the scale is off, imagine the shields are five hundred times the size, they are like two umbrellas that curl towards each other with the gaps to the side closed by sidewalls, the Wedge's are described as intense focused gravity fields that if you fire a laser through it will warp it into uselessness, physical objects are simply annihilated. Like trying to fire through a blackhole in other words. Or maybe a neutron star would be more adapt.

The sidewalls strength depends on ship class and size. There exists shields to cover the throat and rear of the wedge but the ship can no accelerate or decelerate with those shields up. They can cover up 90% of the vulnerability with the Gen 3 Honorverse shielding first used on the super LAC types. But to fully shield the entire thing the ship can't use it's wedges to accelerate/decelerate.

[PREDATOR490]

Nova bomb deployment still seems extremely rare for the CW. Dylan's squeemish nature not withstanding it is rather incredible those things werent being chucked around like candy during the fall. Especially since they seem to be standard weaponary for CW ships. If every GHC has 40 novabombs... thats the ability to exterminate 40 systems PER ship in a fleet measured in the hundreds of thousands.

Either these weapons were used off-screen and we never find out or they werent for reasons unknown.

That said, planet destroying weapons do exist as well. Mathematics of Tears indicates both sides had weapons capable of planatary destruction but never shown. Unless that was a novabomb used by the insane GHC ? Harper manages to cobble together a super bomb that is massively more powerful than a regular Novabomb so it would be logical to conclude the CW can potentially do the same at the height of their power.

The way I see it, the reason their technology is wierd is because their weapons are practical application of tried and tested concepts. The Slipstream stuff is basically magic-tech that got mashed into the setup. They cant make slipstream missiles because it dosent work with automation and energy weapons dont have the range.

Big massive cannons do exist - One is used by Orca pride to hammer the Andromeda. Larger prides and organisations would be able to develop similar weaponary for defence and Andromeda stated she was no match for planet defences a few times. That said, missiles seem like a rather effective technology in this universe given the extreme ranges they can go to over energy weapons and the tracking nature makes them pretty accurate. Thus the universe adapts by employing stealth / electronic jamming and point defence to counter the standard weapons.

Dump an ISD at effective range from a GHC and I dont think it would be unfair to conclude the ISD point defences will quickly get overwhelmed from the missile spam. Hardly a poor reflection of the ISD's capabilities when it's tailormade to an entirely different realm of technology and fighting. Likewise, dump the GHC within effective range of the ISD and its not a poor reflection of the GHC's capabilities when turbolaser batteries are repeatedly punching holes through the thing.

That said, with the information on Slipstream directing them towards planets and suns. It would appear Slipstream is affected by these kinds of bodies and thus wouldnt a gravity well projector effectively mess up slipstream within the area ?
If so, Interdictors could potentially force CW ships into SW effective combat ranges with the CW being unable to do anything about it because they automatically follow the threads to the endpoint. Interdictor 'cuts' the endpoint short or 'warps' it and Slipstream ships get thrown out where the Interdictor is ready to be blasted by the escorts.

[Connor MacLeod]

Err-actually, the sidewalls are the weakest point of their defenses (well, other than the throat and kilt of the wedge, but at least for Manticorans that's the same thing these days), the wedges are by in-universe means utterly impenetrable.
And since when do Honorverse computers suck or are very predictable? I assume you're referring to Cardones figuring out Thunder of God's EW was on autopilot thanks to its operators being too stupid to operate it. Yes, it was predictable-to someone intimately familiar with the tactics and technology involved, against an opponent that had to use it on autopilot because them trying to manipulate it would have degraded performance.

The chief issue with Honorverse point defense is that they are reliant on both the quality of sensor data (and amount of sensor data they have to work with) as well as the length of time betwene firing and interception. Point defense is another one of those messy points where gravitics play a huge role.

[Connor MacLeod]

A 2 ton impact at .6c is pretty much on the scale of one drone being used. Can they take multiple impacts happening simultaneously?

For particle shields? Probably not. Like I said though they're secondary defenses. Later in the series they gain the ability to raise partial and total fore and aft sidewalls, which can make those attacks harder to pull off.

The other point I remmbered later was that as the velocity goes up the mass goes down. So something closer to .9c or so the mass would go down (including relativistic mass I believe.) It seems that the momentum angle is the fixed quantity (that is, you throw out enough momentum to overcome that.)

I find it really hard to believe that Honorverse can shrug of that many missiles, resulting in that much firepower. Heck, in one episode Andromeda fired over 20 GT worth of missiles at one target.

We don't know how many missiles they can take, aside from the notion that kinetic weapons of any kind are generally regarded as ineffective (at least the ones that HV would be capable of, which I presume can include near-c impactors of the same type Andromeda uses.)

That said, my initial analysis from THoTQ was EXTREMELY generous towards Andromeda. For one thing, I'm assuming that velocity remains totally, utterly constant, that the HV ship isn't trying to evade, etc. etc. and I'm assuming that near-simultaneous impacts are comparable to prolonged bombardment. It's not impossible to consider that it would take hundreds of thousands, even millions of OM to down a single HV ship.

There is also (I believe) the energy torpedo which is a near-c plasma mass with a range of about a light second, which are effectively useless in any quanitty against a sidewall.

And what really screws the Honorverse here is that they essentially are blind here and have to react within seconds. AFAIK a wedge only protects one side of the ship. What with multiple salvos striking all sides of the ships?

Their detectability depends entirely on a.) how close you are envisioning Andromeda ships getting and b.) how big a gravitic signature they put off.

And multiple salvos might have a chance of penetrating somehow (barring the bow and setern walls being used. although that renders them effectively immobile.)

In all the battles, no AP tank has ever been penetrated. I think that says something about their durability.

And have there been any other cases where defenses were totally, utterly down and we actually saw a .9-.95c missile strike the AP tanks? Bear in mind that that is the only volatile element I'm assuming. The AP cannons (if they've got AP cannons) capacitors or batteries, and related tech also jumps to mind.

I reject that interpretation of the profile. The official word is that the shape makes it harder to get a lock on the ship and I see no reason to doubt the official, canon word of the writers.

Setting aside the question of how that works for a second, how is "shape makes the ship stealthier" somehow muturally inconsistent with what I said? We know that the ship shape also plays a role in navigating slipstream (they act like funny guidance rail thingajajiggers too) as well - does that suddenly become inconsistent because "the writers said stealth?"

Nevertheless, the fact that they exist and there are several powers in the Andromedaverse which use them means that they are a weapon.

They can be used as a weapon, but as a rule they're not terribly impressive as an offensive weapon (at least compared to other general purpose gravity-magic weapons that have existed.)

The PDLs are only ever seen to damage fighters and missiles. There is no ship ever being destroyed by PDLs.

Nonetheless, they've been noted as being a weapon used against ships, even if its just "soft" damage (such as that inflicted by fighters, as implied by Allsystems.)

Where do you get the acceleration figure from? (I vaguely remember us disccussing it, but I do not know where it was...)

It's listed on Allsystems.org in the glossary, in the same link you gave on page one. Specifically it's right here. Interestingly, they're a bit vague on both the velocity of OMs as well as their acceleration (Acceleration can vary btween 2600 and 4200 kilogees, and velocity can vary between .85 and .95c.)

Yeah, nobody denying that the AA is disadvantaged at closer ranges. They still got the AP guns, however, though these are of course not SW level firepower.

Frankly they've varied between kiloton range to gigaton range, depending on source, I'm assumign the latter is maximum output (and quite probably drains the tanks quite fast. At least thats what I remember hearing.)

Nevertheless, we see that the AA can take several missile hits if necessary. Even over 24 simultaneous hits in that episode.

Yes, but under what conditions, context, etc. You can't just assume the missiles always struck bare hull at .95c for crying out loud. That would be like assuming that HV ships' hulls can take multi-gigaton firepower simply because then because they need dozens of double digit (or so) megaton range warheads to destroy them (One case of that happening I believe was Short Victorious war for BC grade ships. I believe in the podnaught era you need something like several hundred laser heads to do it.)

Which is a pretty big if though.

Except if the range closes I doubt the AA is going to be dancing around at substantial fractions of the speed of light. They have and can use AIs to fight, but they more often tend to fight the ships with organic crews.

Besides which, zipping around at relativistic speeds imposes its own problems, nt the least of which it makes it harder to manuver like a fighter and stay hidden.

Honorverse does not have FTL sensors. If you are assuming this is against Trek, we never see ST ships constantly maneuvering on guard duty etc either. Especially the Dominion war would argue otherwise, most is a slugfest at small ranges.

HV gravitics ARE FTL. Honorverse gravity (at least the wedges) have some magical properties attached to them, but a gravitational field as a side effect seems to be one of them.

We know that warp drive can go below lightspeed. It's happened in ST:TMP (I believe Mike has mentioned that at least once around here in the past.) and we've seen them do sublight warp strafing in TOS and generally anytime they manuver when at warp (since we can SEE them do it.) Them not doing it all the time is pretty easy to explain, considering that travelling at warp is going to impose some significnat drawbacks (like the substantial drop in mass and the problems it could impose with things like, say, weapon's recoil.)

Moreover, I'm well aware that there's lots of stuff Trek doesn't do. Just as there's tons of shit STar Wars doesn't do, or Andromeda does (like why they don't let AIs fight their wars and instead waste time humoring squishy organics, why their mass lightening seemingly violates CoE, etc.) I am point of fact ignoring quite a few silly problems of the Andromeda verse, as well as humoring that idiotic "visuals should be ignored" rule even though we see visuals cited when it suits the fans (such as how agile the AA is.)

With what? You are assuming ST can concentrate enough forces to take on a defense - and if they engage at close range, then that negates the FTL sensor advantage as well as put them into the range of AP guns, which move at .99 c.

Since when did this become a war? I thougth we were talking a tactical battle. If ti becomes a war then they lose simply because the FEderation is smaller than the Systems Commonwealth. SC may not be as big as the Empire, but its still bigger and more numerous than the Federation.

Also: I'm a bit curious why you constantly seem to suggest that the Andromedaverse ships are going to have this magically prescient, near-instantaneous reaction speed to almost anything their opponent will do. Is this venturing into "AI reactions" type stuff?

That sounds suspiciously like one of the tactics the trekkies tried back in the days. We never see transporters being used in that manner and considering that nearly everything screws with transporters anyway.....

It's not. Both Batman and Stofsk have bothe mentioned in this thread that transporter tactics have been used. Stofsk also made the salient point that one thing that will prevent them from being easily used is the use of shields.

Of course transporters were just one idea. Other ideas is simply just to drop some inert mass in space (or antimatter, or whatever) and let the Andromedaverse ship run into it. That's another reason why dancing around at near-c velocities is never a good thing, because that velocity can work against you if you run into something.

Yeah....though the Empire might run faster out of worlds than the CW will run out of. Especially given the empire has to reach across several galaxies, which the Imperial ships are just not able to do or built for.

Why are you assuming the Systems commonwealth will magically know just where to attack? Or that somehow they're going to be just allowed to travel insystem to deliver this warhead and noone is going to stop them?

And even if they manage to achieve this near perfect simultaneous attack, how is this going to stop Palpatine from retaliating Berserker-style once he resurrects at Byss? can the System Commonwealth match Death-star level resource allocations?

The latter they have never done (as you yourself argued not long ago). Really, the PSPs and Nova bombs alone potentially give the CW the capability to escalate to a ridiculous level all around, and Nova bombs are used regularly anyway.

And if they start blowing up planets and systems, that just gives the Empire an excuse to stop playing around and really escalate. Say hello to World Devastators and automated factories, Automated doomships, FTL missiles, and tons of other shit I probably am forgetting at the moment.

[Thanas]

Nova bomb deployment still seems extremely rare for the CW. Dylan's squeemish nature not withstanding it is rather incredible those things werent being chucked around like candy during the fall. Especially since they seem to be standard weaponary for CW ships. If every GHC has 40 novabombs... thats the ability to exterminate 40 systems PER ship in a fleet measured in the hundreds of thousands.

Either these weapons were used off-screen and we never find out or they werent for reasons unknown.

Well, there is apparently mention of that in allsystems (though I cannot check for now due to the site apparently being down). However, do note that the destruction of Fountainhead was also ascribed to one HG warship, so it seems like there is precedent. We also have orbital bombardments on heavily-populated world (like Earth by the Nietzcheans). Clearly some were not used, as the storage on the space station in Episode 3 shows.

And given that this is a civil war, it is unsurprising that WMD usage was somehow less strong than in an allright-out war. Note that the Commonwealth had no problem waging wars of conquest before the long peace and was, in General, not a very "nice" nation.

That said, planet destroying weapons do exist as well. Mathematics of Tears indicates both sides had weapons capable of planatary destruction but never shown. Unless that was a novabomb used by the insane GHC ?

No, that was the impact of the slipstream core on the planet, with the AP explosion destroying it. The Pax Magellanic ejected her slipstream core, which is also why she could not leave (that and every human dieing).

Harper manages to cobble together a super bomb that is massively more powerful than a regular Novabomb so it would be logical to conclude the CW can potentially do the same at the height of their power.

True, but I tend to not use superweapons past season 2, because by then Andromeda had veered from a show with a plan into "Hercules in space" territory. I mean, if we go by those episodes past there, nanotechnology is even more insane, we have entire planetoid bodies moving via slipstream engines etc and Rommie's batteries/her reactor are either weak enough to get shut down due to overuse from powering a panel or strong enough to power interdimensional portals for wholescale invasions on their own. So I would prefer it if we could keep the superweapons to pre Season 2 level simply because after that it gets ridiculous.

Dump an ISD at effective range from a GHC and I dont think it would be unfair to conclude the ISD point defences will quickly get overwhelmed from the missile spam. Hardly a poor reflection of the ISD's capabilities when it's tailormade to an entirely different realm of technology and fighting. Likewise, dump the GHC within effective range of the ISD and its not a poor reflection of the GHC's capabilities when turbolaser batteries are repeatedly punching holes through the thing.

I agree with that but would argue that once the ISD gets its shields up, the XMC cannot do anything. Unless of course missiles act differently than energy projectiles on SW shields, but I do not feel competent enough to make that assertion.

That said, with the information on Slipstream directing them towards planets and suns. It would appear Slipstream is affected by these kinds of bodies and thus wouldnt a gravity well projector effectively mess up slipstream within the area ?

If so, Interdictors could potentially force CW ships into SW effective combat ranges with the CW being unable to do anything about it because they automatically follow the threads to the endpoint. Interdictor 'cuts' the endpoint short or 'warps' it and Slipstream ships get thrown out where the Interdictor is ready to be blasted by the escorts.

Maybe.....however, do note that the CW is perfectly able to open working slipstream portals near planets or maybe even inside the atmosphere. The downside of that is of course that said portals wreck utter havoc on the planet. I mean, in one episode a slipstream portal a few lightseconds out caused massive tectonic shifts, vulcanic eruptions and a massive death toll on one planet.(Which potentially means that this is something else that might be used as a weapon....).

*snip*

Thank you for that excellent summary (and the diagram as well, very helpful).

We don't know how many missiles they can take, aside from the notion that kinetic weapons of any kind are generally regarded as ineffective (at least the ones that HV would be capable of, which I presume can include near-c impactors of the same type Andromeda uses.)

That said, my initial analysis from THoTQ was EXTREMELY generous towards Andromeda. For one thing, I'm assuming that velocity remains totally, utterly constant, that the HV ship isn't trying to evade, etc. etc. and I'm assuming that near-simultaneous impacts are comparable to prolonged bombardment. It's not impossible to consider that it would take hundreds of thousands, even millions of OM to down a single HV ship.

There is also (I believe) the energy torpedo which is a near-c plasma mass with a range of about a light second, which are effectively useless in any quanitty against a sidewall.

Well, for one thing I do not believe the Honorverse has ever used missiles like the OMs at all due to their sensor/control limitations. That said, you are probably right that I am underestimating the damage a HV ship can take, but this gets really hard to elaborate given the lack of real numbers. I really would wish there would be one source like "having taken X missiles at X speed, the defences failed" etc. So while we can reasonably assume the rate of fire a XMC puts out, we do not really know how much a Honorverse ship can take. And considering the XMCs are not even the real shipkillers.....

Their detectability depends entirely on a.) how close you are envisioning Andromeda ships getting and b.) how big a gravitic signature they put off.

And multiple salvos might have a chance of penetrating somehow (barring the bow and setern walls being used. although that renders them effectively immobile.)

I agree, but this is another reason why I find this so difficult to quantify.

And have there been any other cases where defenses were totally, utterly down and we actually saw a .9-.95c missile strike the AP tanks? Bear in mind that that is the only volatile element I'm assuming. The AP cannons (if they've got AP cannons) capacitors or batteries, and related tech also jumps to mind.

I fully believe the missiles struck the AP cannons instead of the tanks. For one, the Pax Magellanic had already vented her slipstream core, which raises the possibility of the AP tanks being empty or at least not in (full?) use. Also, given the close range, an AP strike was possible and likely more damaging than missile strikes. (And of course, there is the small matter of the Pax committing suicide, so she may very well have positioned herself for receiving maximum damage).

Setting aside the question of how that works for a second, how is "shape makes the ship stealthier" somehow muturally inconsistent with what I said? We know that the ship shape also plays a role in navigating slipstream (they act like funny guidance rail thingajajiggers too) as well - does that suddenly become inconsistent because "the writers said stealth?"

No, but I just find the idea that the ship shape leaving open space a bit funny considering that apparently no other species believed in the same idea. Even if we accept a declining tech level, there is no reason for other, supposedly smart species, not to leave such spaces in their warships as well. Also, considering the fact that missiles in the Andromedaverse have amazing turnaround ratios (for example, in the episode D minus zero defensive missiles at high speed turn around and tumble in space in less than a millisecond) I really fail to see how having open space would help much. Thus, I find the other explanation of "shape helps stealth" much better.

They can be used as a weapon, but as a rule they're not terribly impressive as an offensive weapon (at least compared to other general purpose gravity-magic weapons that have existed.)

Agreed in parts. They are amazing terror weapons and WMDs against planets as well as decent against large ships. The larger the ship, the better the targets as well, though note that PSPs have been used against such fast-moving and small targets like drones (episode 2x04, All Too Human, where a ship equipped with several PSPs quickly targets and shoots down Andromeda's sensor drones).

Nonetheless, they've been noted as being a weapon used against ships, even if its just "soft" damage (such as that inflicted by fighters, as implied by Allsystems.)

And in what episode do we see this in?

Yeah, nobody denying that the AA is disadvantaged at closer ranges. They still got the AP guns, however, though these are of course not SW level firepower.

Frankly they've varied between kiloton range to gigaton range, depending on source, I'm assumign the latter is maximum output (and quite probably drains the tanks quite fast. At least thats what I remember hearing.)

Agreed. In general I find them very hard to quantify as well, especially since they are not used in the series (unless you possibly count the close-range fighting in Angel Dark, Demon Bright).

Yes, but under what conditions, context, etc. You can't just assume the missiles always struck bare hull at .95c for crying out loud. That would be like assuming that HV ships' hulls can take multi-gigaton firepower simply because then because they need dozens of double digit (or so) megaton range warheads to destroy them (One case of that happening I believe was Short Victorious war for BC grade ships. I believe in the podnaught era you need something like several hundred laser heads to do it.)

We do know that at least in several instances in D minus zero the missiles did strike the hull and had sufficient time to accelerate. Even moreso, we do know that enemy ships also suffered impacts from multiple XMC salvos (again, D minus zero) and survived.

Then of course there is the instance in Star Crossed, where Andromeda is completely dead in the water and we see at least eight missiles striking the hull. They also had several seconds to accelerate.

Except if the range closes I doubt the AA is going to be dancing around at substantial fractions of the speed of light. They have and can use AIs to fight, but they more often tend to fight the ships with organic crews.

Yes to the latter. As for the former, Angel Dark, Demon bright had the Andromeda moving at high speeds (and turning over etc). So it can be done, though of course it is rarely done with whole battlegroups (like in Point of the Spear).

Besides which, zipping around at relativistic speeds imposes its own problems, nt the least of which it makes it harder to manuver like a fighter and stay hidden.

Agreed.

HV gravitics ARE FTL. Honorverse gravity (at least the wedges) have some magical properties attached to them, but a gravitational field as a side effect seems to be one of them.

Gravity sensors sure. But can they track objects/ships without a wedge?

We know that warp drive can go below lightspeed. It's happened in ST:TMP (I believe Mike has mentioned that at least once around here in the past.) and we've seen them do sublight warp strafing in TOS and generally anytime they manuver when at warp (since we can SEE them do it.) Them not doing it all the time is pretty easy to explain, considering that travelling at warp is going to impose some significnat drawbacks (like the substantial drop in mass and the problems it could impose with things like, say, weapon's recoil.)

Nevertheless, this seems to me like a pretty unusual tactic. We do not see them use it when it would suit them - like warp-strafing the Cardassian planetary defences or so in the Dominion war - which leads me to believe this tactic was either abandoned for good or had too much drawbacks/counters developed to it.

Moreover, I'm well aware that there's lots of stuff Trek doesn't do. Just as there's tons of shit STar Wars doesn't do, or Andromeda does (like why they don't let AIs fight their wars and instead waste time humoring squishy organics, why their mass lightening seemingly violates CoE, etc.)

They generally let the AIs fight the battles and in fleet actions tactics are evaluated by the AIs before put into action. However, given that CW AIs have rebelled at least once (twice maybe? Can't access allsystems currently to check) Humans are probably a control mechanism. And of course AIs can be very ruthless - we see in All Too Human how easily even compassionate ones like Rommie are able to threaten the destruction of a whole planet and taking measures ensuring that destruction if she is unable to complete her mission.

I am point of fact ignoring quite a few silly problems of the Andromeda verse, as well as humoring that idiotic "visuals should be ignored" rule even though we see visuals cited when it suits the fans (such as how agile the AA is.)

Visuals are supposed to be ignored if they contradict the written material. Other than that, they can be used.

Also: I'm a bit curious why you constantly seem to suggest that the Andromedaverse ships are going to have this magically prescient, near-instantaneous reaction speed to almost anything their opponent will do. Is this venturing into "AI reactions" type stuff?

Maybe I have left myself vulnerable to that charge. My point was more that the Andromedaverse generally fights at such high speeds and distances and is forced to react in split seconds (if, say, Offensive missiles are inbound and given no FTL sensors) that most combat would look rather sluggish to them.

It's not. Both Batman and Stofsk have bothe mentioned in this thread that transporter tactics have been used. Stofsk also made the salient point that one thing that will prevent them from being easily used is the use of shields.

Transporters however can easily be messed with in general. Jamming, gravity fields etc...all with the potential to mess with transporters.

Of course transporters were just one idea. Other ideas is simply just to drop some inert mass in space (or antimatter, or whatever) and let the Andromedaverse ship run into it. That's another reason why dancing around at near-c velocities is never a good thing, because that velocity can work against you if you run into something.

That might work, but space is very huge for things just to run into each other.

Why are you assuming the Systems commonwealth will magically know just where to attack? Or that somehow they're going to be just allowed to travel insystem to deliver this warhead and noone is going to stop them?

I was assuming general knowledge on both parts. Because if not, where would the Empire know where to attack? Same thing why people assume both slipstream and hyperdrive will work in the respective universes.

And even if they manage to achieve this near perfect simultaneous attack, how is this going to stop Palpatine from retaliating Berserker-style once he resurrects at Byss? can the System Commonwealth match Death-star level resource allocations?

Unknown, but note that the Nietzcheans were able to built a huuuuge fleet in secret (30.000?) without anyone noticing.

And if they start blowing up planets and systems, that just gives the Empire an excuse to stop playing around and really escalate. Say hello to World Devastators and automated factories, Automated doomships, FTL missiles, and tons of other shit I probably am forgetting at the moment.

All of which can still not cross over from one galaxy into the next. And considering how internally fragile the empire is, one would usually only need to destroy a few core systems. I mean, an Empire losing Coruscant, Carida, Billbringi, Sluis Van and Kuat is pretty much done for, given historical precedent. It also asumes that, like in ROTJ-era, other states will also not rise up and support the CW given that it is a far more tolerant nation and will have shown a capability to take on the empire. And even if that is not a given, I have no doubt that the empire will still fracture due to the infighting as happened in the post-ROTJ era. (I also have no doubt that Thrawn would eventually find a way to beat back the invaders and force a truce).

[Dahak]

In Honorverse, gravity interacts with the alpha wall of hyperspace and generates a "ripple effect" in the alpha wall which can be detected. The bigger the gravity source, the bigger the ripple and the easier the detection.

As for FTL sensors and missiles, the newest tech addition of Apollo gives the Manties FTL-remote-controlled missile swarms up to the point of impact, which makes them even more effective.
Another point against Andromeda here is that Mantie missiles are not kinetic impactors. Even the oldest laser heads had a range of at least 20,000 km and that only improved (I think now up to about 100,000 km, but need to check).

From the horse's mouth about kinetic attacks: Kinetic attacks.
Note, that the particle shields are designed to withstand an impact of 2 tons at about 0.6c, and particle shielding is not even close to the main line of passive defense for a HH ship...

And as for the Mesa attack: the Manties were surprised, because they didn't know about that new drive system and it took the Mesans months to crawl into position and a good portion of luck. Now that they know about it, that trick will not work a second time that easily.

[Thanas]

From the horse's mouth about kinetic attacks: Kinetic attacks.
Note, that the particle shields are designed to withstand an impact of 2 tons at about 0.6c, and particle shielding is not even close to the main line of passive defense for a HH ship...

We discussed that already above. Particle shields would most likely not take a lot of missiles or drones before failing miserably. As to the rest, he seems to argue that kinetic missiles against the sidewalls/wedges are useless (the speeds he cites are also much lower than the Andromeda missiles achieve), so that is pretty much what he discussed above as well.

[Dahak]

From the horse's mouth about kinetic attacks: Kinetic attacks.
Note, that the particle shields are designed to withstand an impact of 2 tons at about 0.6c, and particle shielding is not even close to the main line of passive defense for a HH ship...

We discussed that already above. Particle shields would most likely not take a lot of missiles or drones before failing miserably. As to the rest, he seems to argue that kinetic missiles against the sidewalls/wedges are useless (the speeds he cites are also much lower than the Andromeda missiles achieve), so that is pretty much what he discussed above as well.

One thing you haven't mentioned are the "sidewall penetrators" which are a never-in-detail-explained device that allows missile penetration of sidewalls. Without those, kinetic attacks against it will do exactly splat, as per DW and all observed instances in the books. Andromeda missiles lack those.

[Thanas]

One thing you haven't mentioned are the "sidewall penetrators" which are a never-in-detail-explained device that allows missile penetration of sidewalls. Without those, kinetic attacks against it will do exactly splat, as per DW and all observed instances in the books. Andromeda missiles lack those.

Yeah, you are correct, but I just think stating that "no kinetic attacks will work" is a bit of a no-limist fallacy. And note that I have focused much more on the XMC attacking the front/rear ends.

[Dahak]

One thing you haven't mentioned are the "sidewall penetrators" which are a never-in-detail-explained device that allows missile penetration of sidewalls. Without those, kinetic attacks against it will do exactly splat, as per DW and all observed instances in the books. Andromeda missiles lack those.

Yeah, you are correct, but I just think stating that "no kinetic attacks will work" is a bit of a no-limist fallacy. And note that I have focused much more on the XMC attacking the front/rear ends.

The front/rear ends of current Manticoran ships, as already mentioned, are now also protected by sidewalls, so the distinction is moot.

[Thanas]

I did not know that. I thought having all around protection renders Honorverse ships immobile.

[Xon]

Here is a more to scale wedge geometry. It also doesn't make a bit of difference if this is pre-great resizing retcon or post. Thats how much the wedge outsides the ship itself.

And 10-15 minutes is quite a lot.

This is the time to go to general quarters/action stations, and warm up those insane "fusion" reactors they have to combat energy production levels and ramp particle shields up from standby mode to battle conditions and raise sidewalls. A single fusion reactor on a battlecruiser detonating vaporised the ship and the resulting particle cloud impacted ships ~600km away with enough force to sandblast large chunks of armor away through particle fields with the radiation release being deadly enough to kill >80% of the crew of a ship some what 'closer'.

Yeah, you are correct, but I just think stating that "no kinetic attacks will work" is a bit of a no-limist fallacy.

It is isn't so much as a no-limit fallacy but the fact the sidewall/wedge are gravity waves where the sidewall/wedge generators only weakly interact with the actual sidewall/wedge. Yes, powerful enough feedback will eventually destroy the generator but the only examples of that occuring are wedge/wedge collisions which results in the complete explosive vaporization of at least one ship(ie the weaker wedge or both if they are equivelent power).

Then there is the fact you need pure magic for a material object to survive a +100000gee gravity shear over the space of a 1-10 meters.

We do know that Honorverse manportable SAMs which are wedge missiles and trivially slice through entire skyscraper buildings and even hit orbital targets stupid enough to stay still and not shoot them down.

I did not know that. I thought having all around protection renders Honorverse ships immobile.

A full sidewall in the front cuts thier acceleration to zero, but "buckler" sidewalls only covering a fraction of the area directly infront of the ship and the back allow reduced acceleration but greatly increased protection.

[Thanas]

And 10-15 minutes is quite a lot.

This is the time to go to general quarters/action stations, and warm up those insane "fusion" reactors they have to combat energy production levels and ramp particle shields up from standby mode to battle conditions and raise sidewalls. A single fusion reactor on a battlecruiser detonating vaporised the ship and the resulting particle cloud impacted ships ~600km away with enough force to sandblast large chunks of armor away through particle fields with the radiation release being deadly enough to kill >80% of the crew of a ship some what 'closer'.

Wow.

A full sidewall in the front cuts thier acceleration to zero, but "buckler" sidewalls only covering a fraction of the area directly infront of the ship and the back allow reduced acceleration but greatly increased protection.

So they are more like partial shields that can be moved around? Though given how slow the Honorverse is, this won't really matter much in terms of speed etc.

[Batman]

To my knowledge, the 'buckler' front/rear sidewall can't be moved around, it stays in a fixed position ahead of/behind the ship, it just means the ship has a not inconsiderable increase in protection compare to an open throat/kilt while retaining most of its maneuverability and acceleration (which, yes, compared to Andromeda, isn't much, but it is still something they'd have to work around somehow).

[Mr Bean]

A full sidewall in the front cuts thier acceleration to zero, but "buckler" sidewalls only covering a fraction of the area directly infront of the ship and the back allow reduced acceleration but greatly increased protection.

So they are more like partial shields that can be moved around? Though given how slow the Honorverse is, this won't really matter much in terms of speed etc.

The geometries of the shields are fixed, like the wedges they might have an alternative mode but emitters for a Honoverse shield are fixed instillation, they project their energy fields in the same place relative to the ships physical geometry. The only movement you can do with sidewalls (Like "off") is done before you finish laying down the hull of the ship. Once a ship is completed the sidewall generators are custom built for that ship class and major refits changing the Wedge's or ship details require new sidewall generators as interference between the wedge and the sidewall results in very degraded performance in any areas the Wedge or hull would interfere. (Note there is some indication that the Wedge generators possibly are forced to physically move because they alternate between real-space wedge mode and hyperspace Sail mode projecting up/down then front/back, thus part of preparing for hyperspace involves the physical rotation of the generators into a new alignment but that's speculation.)

A bit about sidewall penetration
We don't know HOW they work but we know what they do. To be exact they create localized sidewall disruptions. Energy Torpedo's are a very high energy direct fire weapon which can rip any honorverse ship apart like tissue paper but they are utterly useless against a ship's wedge or sidewalls. Every missile be it contact nuke or bomb pumped laser takes advantage of penetration aids which are designed to weaken a sidewall's strength just before delivering their payload. We know this because contact nukes are designed for skin on skin hits which would be impossible with an intact sidewall, even something like a city bus worth of kinetic energy at .1LS does nothing to an intact Cruiser sidewall and that's more than any contact nuke can do.

Thus a destroyer's laser warhead is quite capable of damaging a dreadnaught's armor but not capable of penetrating it's much more powerful side wall. A dreadnaught's warhead by contrast is not only three times as powerful pound for pound but lets nearly all of that get through through the destroyer's sidewall.

[Xon]

The secret source for both the insane fusion power plants and the super-efficient laser heads is the use of extreme gravitational lensing and compression. Modern laserhead have a gravity generator which activates milliseconds before the detonation of the bomb and generates a powerful enough gravity field to redirect significant percentage of the explosion onto the lasing rods rather than radiate in a sphere.

Battlecruiser and above, fusion reactors use something similar where they use gravitational compression to pack more fuel into the reactor at higher densities and somehow achieve dramatically higher efficiencies in nuclear fusion. These reactors can power energy weapons which as an entire broadside armorment are hitting into the megaton to gigaton range for an alpha strike(destruction of large rocky asteriods), and are capable of powering hours of such combat. Again, the onboard grazers (gamma-ray lasers) use gravitational lensing because Honorverse doesn't have any physical material capable of surviving the power output of a grazer and function as a lensing material.

These same reactors can also push near megaton sized ships at ~400 gees linear acceleration using fusion-powered reaction thrusters for ~10 minutes. This actually drained the ship's reaction mass so low they would only enough fuel for a few hours of fighting compared to Honorverse ships never detailing being worried about fuel before.

The geometries of the shields are fixed, like the wedges they might have an alternative mode but emitters for a Honoverse shield are fixed instillation, they project their energy fields in the same place relative to the ships physical geometry.

However, if a ship is willing to sacrifice maximium acceleration the relative position of the ship to the wedge can 'float' rather being in the exact middle. Also, wedge geometry will change at higher accelerations, the angle relative to the ship changes.

[Batman]

Where's 400 gs on reaction thrusters from? That's close to their maximum safe acceleration with wedges up around the beginning of the series for capital ships. Honor's insane stunt from 'Echoes of Honor' had them at 150 gs for 35 minutes with 12 hours of standard operations left.