============ OGRE/GEV list, June 12th (Last: June 8th) ============= ===== Ogres, Terrain, Movement and Ground Pressure From: "Clinton D. Coates" ===== Ogre Miniatures From: "Clinton D. Coates" ===== more musings... From: "Clinton D. Coates" ===== PC Ogre, Battlesuit, PBEM From: "Clinton D. Coates" ===== ogre news From: Steve Jackson ------------------------------ From: "Clinton D. Coates" Subject: Ogres, Terrain, Movement and Ground Pressure I have seen various numbers bandied about for the weight and size of Ogres. The reason I ask, is that I would like to get a rough idea of the ground pressure the treads exert (I guess I would need some idea of the square footage of treads as well). The reason? I was talking to Todd Zircher about the capabilities of V-Map and being able to use air photos as a map base. I am thinking about putting together a scenarion based in north eastern British Columbia (near Ft St John/Dawson Creek). The terrain there is rocky mountain foothills sloping down into Alberta Plateau terrain. Which basically means muskeg (swamp all the way to China), low dry pine ridges and incredibly deep and steep incised river and creek valleys. There are also lots of seismic lines to allow movement. I need to know if there are any terrain features that could slow down or stop an ogre. Some of the creek valleys are quite steep (50-80%) and up to 100m deep with a very sharp V profile and loose mucky sides. I would think even an ogre would have to treat these with a bit of diffidence when traversing. GEVs could travel pretty well through cut lines, even overgrown ones, but not so well through muskeg (which is treed with 1-10cm dia black spruce). What may happen is it would end up being an infantry and chopper battle. Part of the reason for this is that the area could double for regions of north east russia without too much trouble. Clinton ------------------------------ From: "Clinton D. Coates" Subject: Ogre Miniatures FWIW, Games By Mail in Ottawa, Ontario has one new copy of OGRE miniatures left at $7.50 CAN. email: Andrew Webber [webbers@magmacom.com] and Patti Webber [pwebber@magmacom.com] http://www.magmacom.com/~webbers/games.htm (follow link to Bargain Letter for catalogue) cheques to: Games by Mail, P.O. Box 8676, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada K1G 3J1 The penultimate copy is mine, so snooze you looze. (of course HJC gets first dibs anyway...) Clinton ----- [As if I didn't already have a copy. -HJC] ------------------------------ From: "Clinton D. Coates" Subject: more musings... Henry, let me know if I am spamming the list too much and I'll lay off! Re: Musings on Helicopters and other aircraft and other random thoughts Wouldn't a 'near miss' with a small nuke swat an aircraft out of the sky regardless of how much armour it was carrying. What would bundles of mylar 'window' do for foiling a laser tower? FOOs. Using the direct fire/indirect fire discussed in the Dec 12.93 article, and combining it with a sneaky Ranger type unit could make an interesting combination though it might slow things down. To speed it back up a bit (with a bit of unrealism added) one could use only designated spotter units to direct fire (how about a really expensive AWACS unit. Plus 2 attack for all units .....until it gets nuked in the first turn nahhh.) I had always envisioned a 'battlefield of the future' where information collected from disparate units would be synthesised and redistributed to give unit commanders a larger scale tactical feel along with close range solutions. The ultimate simplification of forward observers would be that this is already included in the fabric of the game (designer cop-out?) ;-) On the subject of the 'unrealistically short' ranges of weapons such as the howitzers. David Drake in one of his 'Slammers' books had some interesting scenes where individual tanks were slaved to a central unit for anti artillery work. One could view the range of 8 hexes for a howitzer as a simplifiying rule to account for this effect. Longer shots simply get intercepted before they can impact. I seem to recall that there already is artillery counter radar being used in Bosnia (I may be wrong on this one though). Another unit idea. Remote drones for the Ogre? This could be used in scenarios where you have hidden movement/setup. (Guess who just finished reading one of the BOLO short story books). I have no idea if this is a good idea or not, or how much they could cost or....But they might be useful for scoping out possible enemy positions, adding a bonus for indirect fire (if the defenders have it, why not the ogre too!). Of course, the whole thing can be negated by just assuming that communication will be so snarled by ECM and EMP from nuke bursts that most of the units have to act semi independently. (then you would have to use LOS laser communication between units) ------------------------------ From: "Clinton D. Coates" Subject: PC Ogre, Battlesuit, PBEM (are these too off topic?) I am looking for a working copy of the PC version of OGRE. I have found an Apple II version on the 'net that is supposed to run on a PC through a DOS or PC emulation program, but would prefer to get a 'legit' copy that runs on my PC. I would HAPPILY send SJ a cheque for the appropriate amount if he would give me a disk with the game on it! Also, does anyone have a copy of Battlesuit they would like to get rid of? I used to have it, but unfortunately it has been lost somewhere through the last few moves... I was thinking of trying to adapt it for PBEM through Corel Draw...if someone would be interested in trying to play it with me! My impression of the game while I had it was that it was a bit unwieldy at the scale and size played. I think computerizing it might make it a bit less clunky (and stop from swimming in a sea of 'jump high' counters) Has anyone tried playing an unmoderated version of PBEM OGRE? I know it would be a bit clunkier and involve more trust than the refereed version, but it would also be better for the *non* ref ;-) Clinton ------------------------------ From: Steve Jackson Subject: ogre news Thanks to Mike Smith, in Texoma, who provided me with a couple of samples of the original Martian Metals OGRE MINIATURES packaging . . . and with enough information that we can nail down all the original MM stock numbers. We'll update the Ogre Miniatures checklist asap! Steve Jackson - yes, of SJ Games - yes, we won the Secret Service case Learn Web or die - http://www.sjgames.com/ - dinosaurs, Lego, Kahlua! The heck with PGP keys; finger for Geek Code. Fnord. ------------------------------ Henry J. Cobb hcobb@io.com http://www.io.com/~hcobb All OGRE-related items Copyright (c) 1997, by Steve Jackson Games.