On Sat, Sep 6, 2014 at 11:23 AM,  <shadow@shadowgard.com> wrote:
> On 5 Sep 2014 at 9:20, Jeffrey Schwartz wrote:
>
>> TL13,14,15, you've got room temp superconductors. No longer need 3
>> gauge wire to carry the power load, you can use 22 gauge. No longer
>> need big conduit to run it in, either - you form the conduit into the
>> hull matrix to begin with, since it's only going to be about 12mm
>> around.
>> Plasma conduit from the fusion reactor(s) to the M-Drive is going to
>> be formed in as well.
>
> Not for anything that's ever expected to take damage.
>
> You can replace section of conduit if there's a hole thru that
> section of wall due to combat damage.
>
> If the channel is part of the wall, then splice the cables and
> replacing the "run" just got at least an order of magnitude harder.
>

That's the trade off I'm thinking on though...
If you're expecting damage, which would you rather have wrapped around cables:
a) 3mm thick tubing that can be cut using easily portable tools
b) 20mm of hull metal

If it's going to be hit in battle damage, then it's either going to
get hit from the outside - in which case it doesn't matter if it's
conduit bracketed to the bulkhead... or it's going to be hit by
shrapnel from something inside the ship being hit and blowing up.
In which case, having it buried in the hull means higher chance of the
run surviving.
If it does get hit, then you've got the hole that cut the cable as
access to the cable.
At TL14/15, you take a SmartSplicer, shove it in the hole, and hit
"AUTOMATCH". When the lights are green, you hit "SOLDER" and "SEAL"

>> . At
>> TL13+, you put one of the little heads-up displays on, link it to your
>> hand-comp, and it'll do an Augmented Reality schematic of the stuff
>> behind the wall, including highlights of pipe temps, power feed
>> status, etc.
>
> Now picture the fun when an engineer pops the panel only to find that
> what the AR display is showing him doesn't match what's actually
> there.
>

Considering it's coming from the same computer system that's handling
all the other maintenance of the ship...

> Could be because this is a Mark V mod F ship and they got the info
> for a mod D. Or it could be an "upgrade" from that last yard visit
> for anuual maintenance.

If the Ship Comp is tracking all the changes to the ship (and it would
kind of have to, in order for it to make use of those changes) then
things will me in sync.
If they install a Mod F device, then the instant it installs it checks
in with the Comp, and while it's loading the updates for the
holodynamic controls it'll load the AR updates as well.

>
> And even AR isn't going to help much if some pennypincher at the yard
> did what I heard happened to one new USN vessel a decade or so back.
>
> Because of automated wire laying gear (or some such) they "saved
> money" by using all the same color wires in the wiring harnesses.
>
> There were *loud* screams when the first ship went for a shakedown
> and they opened something up for a "simple" repair only to find
> neatly bundled wiring harnesses. With every single (unlabeled!) wire
> the exact same shade of red.
>

That's actually one where the AR would probably _help_
I could see a thing like a modified PRIS that would read induced
currents and false color wires.

ShipComp:"Step 27, cut wire C-3. I'm inducing RF tracer now"
Engineer wearing goggles:"I see one of the bundles pulsing da-di-da-di... "
Engineer undoes cable tie, seperates them out. Comp realizes he has
the right bundle, and begins pushing a different signal...
Engineer:"ok, I see one pulsing di-di-di-da-dah.... power off and I'll cut"
ShipComp:"Done. "
Engineer : snip... "And done. Next step?"