====== Ogre Digest, October 25th (Last: October 22nd) ======== ===== Rattler Mortar From: David Morse ===== OGRE and Battlesuit questions From: "Chris French" ===== OGRE...Furries? From: "Noah V. Doyle" ===== Are BOPPERS canon? From: Daniel Gallant ============================== From: David Morse Subject: Rattler Mortar > The engine in the Rattler missile takes it further than the reach of >tossing rocks so the missiles on the MK VI should have a range of 11 GEV >hexes (Halving range for evasive missiles as usual.) Cute. Somewhat worth thinking about. Now I know why Warehouse 23 is selling its PE Howitzers for so cheap. And while I'm thinking about it, how come HWZ don't have to keep track of ammo, but the gigantic Ogres, carrying a weaker weapon that is also vulnerable to interception, does have to keep track of ammo? Food for thought. ===== [By GURPS OGRE (uh oh), the HWZ has more than one minute's ammo while the Mk IV has less than a minute's ammo and the Missile Tank can fire at full rate for two minutes before running dry. Actually, the Rattler has twice the attack strength of a HWZ in overruns and if that isn't nasty enough for you, I don't see how the Rattler can avoid doing normal spillover in overruns. -HJC] ============================== From: "Chris French" Subject: OGRE and Battlesuit questions > [The ability of OGREs to wade through exactly those places where > GEV-PCs have problems is a feature not a bug for this oversized escort. > > It's a GOOD thing. -HJC] That's what I was saying -- in fact, I just finished drawing up (?) stats for a tracked infantry carrier (think "HVY-PC"), after consider- ing the Pacifc Northwest's terrain. Up here, between the Cascades and the covering forests, a GEV is essentially a glorified train -- it can't leave the roads; a tracked infantry carrier, OTOH, tends to ig- nore forest hexes*. In these parts, infantry carriers would necess- arily be tracked (mvmt. mode either TNK, HVY, or OGR). [NOTE: While I own a copy of _OGRE Miniatures 1st ed._, I do not play OGRE in any form save the classic paper-counter variety. The reasons for this are A Whole Other Rant [TM]. :) ] > From: "Chris French" > Subject: _OGRE_ (OK, _Battlesuit_) query > > I need some information from the game _Battlesuit_ (the infantry- > only _OGRE_ game), and since my copy is 900+ miles away from me > at the moment, I'm wondering if someone else can provide the data > I need. > > What I need to know is: > > -- Movement Point values for each type of unit in the game > -- The map scale (distance from one point to another) > -- The time scale (how long a turn is) > > Thanks. > > CF > > ===== > > [See GURPS OGRE, page 68. > > You can buy a copy at http://www.sjgames.com/gurps/books/ogre/ [horrible French accent] OK, ah'll ask 'eem, but I dawn' theenk hee'll be verrah keen -- 'ee's already got one, you seeeee? [/h.F.a.] > Oh, OK, don't look at me that way. > > The relevant quotes are: "Battlesuit map points are 40 yards > apart. ... One Battlesuit movement point is 8 mph..." > > The timescale is therefore around 10 seconds. -HJC] Hmm -- I distinctly remember calculating RTD* for _Battlesuit_ back before the time_t's wrapped, and recall that the scale value was a bit off (the book listed some value in the 30m range; the cal- culation I came up with, using original _OGRE_ as a reference, came out somewhere else in the 30m range). I can't remember the precise values, tho'; guess I'll have to wait until December, and look for my copy. [* RTD: Rate Time Distance -- the old "if a bus traveling 40 MPH travels 6 hours, how far does it travel?" stuff from 2nd-grade arith- metic] > If only 1 IU can climb in/out in 4 minutes, i think they have a design > problem. i'd allow for the whole 3-unit squad Sorry, I should have clarified -- I should have specified "platoon" (3x 1/1) where I said "unit". [looks at old Microgaming _Helltank_ and _Helltank Destroyer_ copies] Hmm -- how many weapons would an OGRE have to swap to carry a Heavy Tank or two? (Or have I gotten silly?) >and use the standard riding > rules, except that the inf are inside the Ogre, and therefor: > > a) aren't affected by attacks on the Ogre unless one targets the Men in > the Box (what's it's defense? 3?) (and they are destroyed when the box is > destroyed). The riding infantry are treated like Rack-fired missiles -- they cannot be hit by fire. The Loading Door for the infantry is Defense 3; if the door is destroyed, units may not enter or exit the OGRE. > b) boxed inf can't attack in an overrun. That much is obvious. (Firing ports on an OGRE? :) ) > Remember, an Ogre can already carry 3 squads, but they [the inf.] suffer > the penalty of being hit by any attack aimed at the Ogre (and not a > spillover's half value, either). Yup. The Golem in question could carry at least four platoon -- 3 in, 1 out -- which would make prospective overrunners think twice. > OK, now for the nasty trick of the day. Evil Stevie sees no problems > with having only two missile racks on the Mk VI, but everybody else who > takes the Mk VI close enough to use the missile racks looses them during > the next turn. What does he know that we don't? Well, for one thing, instead of having to shoot out 15-20 missiles independently, all it takes to shut down a rack-equipped OGRE's bombardment capacity is 4-5 2:1 attacks. No wonder the Paneuros kept getting ----hammered. > Well, in GURPS Vehicles if you built a gauss cannon that was low > powered with an barrel of say 2.3 feet (702mm) in diameter and 23 feet > long (extremely short) then a solid warhead shell for this gun would > weigh about 6500 pounds. > > Oddly enough the Combine's Rattler missiles are 2.3 feet in diameter, > 23 feet long and weigh a little over 6000 pounds. > > Fine, you say, but wouldn't such a supergun weigh too much for even an > Ogre to carry? > > The weight of a light automatic version of this gun (ROF 1/5) is under > 15,000 pounds which is LESS than the weight of an unboosted Rattler Launch > Rack with half the rate of fire. (The gun is also smaller, but requires > 150,000kW of power or slightly more than half the drain of a secondary > battery.) > > OK, but low powered and extremely short? That doesn't sound like a > very long range gun, even if it always fires at a high angle for indirect > fire. > > The formula (no, not THE FORMULA, quiet back there) says that 1/2D is > 3000 yards and Max is 9,600 yards and indirect max is 24,000 yards or 13 > and a half miles (or GEV hexes). > > The engine in the Rattler missile takes it further than the reach of > tossing rocks so the missiles on the MK VI should have a range of 11 GEV > hexes (Halving range for evasive missiles as usual.) > > The final insult for this injury is that the Rattler Mortar costs only > $60 million (it is a gun/launcher after all), a tiny fraction of the > billion+ bucks the Mk VI costs. > > Please ignore the fact that a HEAT round from the Rattler Mortar can > burn through the front armor on a Mk VI, which a single Rattler can't... > -HJC ;-] This explains why I don't own a copy of _GURPS Vehicles_ -- it was bad enough when _Car Wars Tanks_ came out, and A Duellist Who Shall Remain Nameless promptly used those rules to build a _CW_-spec OGRE Mk. V -- WITH NUCLEAR SHELLS, might I add. (BTW: Earlier, I mentioned having used Mr. Cobb's armor formula to create tracked APCs -- I also created Mortar units. Great [?] minds thinking alike?) I'll say this for Mr. Cobb's _OGRE_ armor/infantry formula -- it pro- hibits Munchkinism quite effectively. (Don't know about the OGRE calculator -- it uses JavaScript, and there's no way in ---- I'm going to open *THAT* big a hole in the ol' security screen! How about a HTML version, Mr. Cobb? :) ) CF ===== [Both of my online calculators use Javascript. Just mark me as a trusted site and I won't use your online banking accounts unless I really need to. -HJC ;-] ============================== From: "Noah V. Doyle" Subject: OGRE...Furries? How did we miss -this- one? http://www.tailswish.com/gallery/album24 Like it or not, it's...interesting. ===== [Yeah, forgot to mention that when it showed up on the Daily Ill. -HJC] ============================== From: Daniel Gallant Subject: Are BOPPERS canon? Are BOPPERS part of the "official" Ogre canon? I'm guessing they would be available in most (all) years of the last war. A modifier to the Cobb formula to calculate their value could be to multiply final cost by 0.6 if the unit has to be programmed. Does anyone know if SJGames owns the rights to Rivets? This could make an interesting (if slightly goofy) article. Daniel "TechOgre" Gallant ===== [No. Hmmmm. No, the guy who owns the rights to Rivets hasn't been seen in years and they're not likely to find where I hid the bo... er the idea simply isn't feasible, sorry. -HJC] Send all submissions or mailing list changes or problems to ogre@sjgames.com Archives for this mailing list may be found at http://www.io.com/~hcobb/ General online support for the OGRE game is at http://www.sjgames.com/ogre Ogre, G.E.V., Shockwave and other products mentioned here are trademarks or registered trademarks of Steve Jackson Games. All rights are reserved by SJ Games. 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