============ OGRE/GEV list, June 21st (Last: June 19th) ============= ===== The hills are alive..... From: garth.getgen@genie.com ------------------------------ From: garth.getgen@genie.com Subject: The hills are alive..... Clinton, Thanks for the feedback. I guess my numbers weren't too far off then?? First, I have the minitures rules but I write all my "optional rules" for the paper/map version. If there's a way to adapt them over to minitures, all the better. Indeed, elevation grades are probably much easier to deal with in minitures than on paper. All you need is a home-made slope-meter built out of a plastic protractor, a string and a weight. I was thinking of putting numbers in the hex and NOT attempting to draw contor lines in. Being in the USAF and having gone to the field with the Army (I was attatched to the 7th Light Infantry for a while), I know all too well how hard those line-contored maps can be to read. I looked at "steps" of every 15 meters (1/100 hex distance) but I finally desided on decameters because I'd like to do maps on real locations in the world. By using nice "round" numbers of 10, 20, 25, etc; it should make it easier to tell fairly quickly if a unit can go up (down) a slope from one hex to the next. If my tank is at 12 "steps" elevation and wants to move to the next hex that's at 27 "steps", the difference is 15 -- thus it costs two MP but not the whole turn's MPs to make the move. The real beauty of OGRE/GEV is it's a fast, simply game to play (which may cause one to wonder why we insist on making it more complex with all these optional rules). I think that elevation numbers would tend to preserve that better. Also, if the numbers are a color that doesn't stand out too hard, like a light grey, then players that don't want to use them can simply ignore them. I think contor lines would be too glaring. Remember, too, that the scale is 1500 meters (just shy of a mile) per hex. That means there's a lot of "smoothing" of overrall terrain feature (does a TOWN really cover the full hex?), thus my idea of "average elevations". I think that contors, if used for both LOS and movement restrictions, would get too cluttered in this scale if both uses are realistic. Of course, if >>I<< was going to reinvent OGRE/GEV, the map/time scales would probably be far different. The combat tables would change, too, but that's another matter in itself. Speaking of LOS, I guess I didn't say what I meant too well: A rise of "x" steps will block LOS if it's an interveaning higher hex than either the shooter or target. Thinking about it, I guess you could have a really high terrain hex that could block fire altogether and even radar -- two units traveling down parallel valleys with a sharp mountain between them.... Just my not-so-humble opinion. :) Garth L. Getgen ------------------------------ Henry J. Cobb hcobb@io.com http://www.io.com/~hcobb All OGRE-related items Copyright (c) 1997, by Steve Jackson Games.