====== Ogre Digest, October 28th (Last: October 27th) ======== ===== Formula munchkins From: "Chris French" From: stephan beal From: AvaheilDotter@aol.com ===== lads From: "Louis Wardlaw IV" ===== Moutain Tanks From: Servitor@aol.com From: Sethkimmel@aol.com ============================== From: "Chris French" Subject: Formula munchkins > [Several problems with plasma weapons, not the least of which is that > air is armor. -HJC] Find a copy of _2300 AD_ -- they handle that problem neatly. (Use a laser to create a path for the plasma to follow.) And, of course, since pretty much every antiarmor weapon current- ly in existence is essentially a plasma weapon.... (The shot hits the armor; friction and other factors do the rest.) > Try making some fast, long range, long withdraw units. They're super > cheap with D0, and if you do things right the huge withdraw will make > them invincible versus official units. > > One thing the Cobb formula doesn't account for is that most units have a > strike(*) of 6 hexes or less. If you have more than that much strike or > withdraw(+) you're going to have a fat and happy life. Which is why > senior formula spits out 9 vp for the "cub", while in practice most > people value it at 12+ vp. Couple problems with this: 1) _OGRE Book 2nd ed._ establishes that 6 is the upper limit for any mobile unit's Attack Value, I think 4 is the upper movement limit (for first-movement-phase movement), and range is effectively limited at 5 (in SJ's notes, he says 10, but I think he's referring to inches in the miniatures game). The howitzers are a special case -- they're too big to move about abruptly. Mr. Cobb: Supposing the formula were weighted to provide a bo- nus to a unit which had an exceptionally long range? I think that might cover the discrepancy noted for long-ranged units (Missile Tanks, Howitzers, etc.). 2) The "Cub" in "The Lone GEV" isn't canon. (Not yet, anyway.) > If I redesigned the LGEV with only DR 200 to make a really light and > speedy unit, I'd still give it D1 for point defense and evasion, even if > every SATNUC near miss caused a -8 hazard roll. -HJC] Yes -- all those nukes going off are going to launch the various ve- hicles into low-earth-orbit. Seeing pictures of what near-hits from 1,000-lb. bombs did to Tigers and Panthers in WW2 -- ouch. (A Panther is a substantial beast -- some 60-odd tons; _OGRE_ units are a bit heavier, but face MUCH bigger booms.) Unit survival on a nuclear battlefield is predicated on not only Not Getting Hit, but Not Being Anywhere Near The Detonation Zone. > I have seen NO armor that does well in mountainous areas like the > Cascades or central Asia. While tracks allow you a BIT off the roads, they > STILL do not handle 20+ degree slopes for miles on end or at high speeds. And > be careful how you shoot... Ever seen a mountain hex in _OGRE_? Didn't think so. :) Seriously, tho': We do have some flat areas with trees; tracked ve- hicles would be OK. The water masses, tho' -- one wouldn't even have to aim at targets, just fire by coordinate. Splash one GEV pla- toon. One wonders how the Nihon Invasion went off up here -- OGREs and tracks would be essentially useless in the important areas, and GEVs would be channeled into riverside kill-zones. _Battlesuit_, anyone? :) CF ===== [Best to generate the plasma at the target rather than worrying about carrying it there. In GURPS terms a SATNUC does 12,000 dice of damage, at the OGRE TL that takes of plasma beam of a billion kilowatt seconds and the Mark V's power cells only store one fourth of that, while each main battery shell does 19 times that, not to mention the Rattlers. Long range is NOT a problem in OGRE. After all, when's the last time you complained about the range of a laser tower or missile crawler? No, excessive speed is the problem with a move-shoot-scoot game. -HJC] ============================== From: stephan beal Subject: Formula munchkins > From: "Chris French" (i hope i'm quoting the right person here - that was a very long post and it's possible i've mixed something up.) > 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? :) ) http://byoo.rootonfire.org That tool uses a much simplified formula and no javascript. The formula isn't as exact as Henry's, but does the job for me. If you'd like the actual algorithm, let me know and i can dig it out of the source code for you. ===== [Your system is also OGRE only, while mine covers armor and infantry as well. -HJC ;-] ===== From: AvaheilDotter@aol.com Subject: Formula munchkins << One thing the Cobb formula doesn't account for is that most units have a strike(*) of 6 hexes or less. If you have more than that much strike or withdraw(+) you're going to have a fat and happy life. Which is why senior formula spits out 9 vp for the "cub", while in practice most people value it at 12+ vp. >> The hit and run ability of GEVs make them the most powerful units when terrain is not a factor. Hummmm, wonder what "bounce infantry" would look like with a move of 2/1... Probably not that important. It is the GEV ability to retreat farther than most weapons have range that makes them dangerous... Ad Astra! Stan Leghorn ===== [The overrun and hit and overrun capability of LGEVs gives them a very high effective attack strength. If you're only firing once per turn you're conserving too much ammo! -HJC] ============================== From: "Louis Wardlaw IV" Subject: lads What are those lads in the new combine set anyways? Are they just light howitzers who may be transported? Has anybody used those proposed rattler carriers in the ogre book? Also are the infantry carriers viable without using the special rules also proposed in the Ogre book. One last thing, I dabbled with the heavy tanks by taking away the ignores forests special rules. The result is a heavy tanks whose value rounds to 5.5 points (same as a missle launcher). The reason for this is some article said in the ogre book that the rule was a compromise. Louis J. WardlawIV Postbus 12600, 2500 DJ Den Haag, Neiderland ===== [I consider Hoverblitz to be a standard part of the rules. It fixes a hole that had always existed in GEV but that nobody had noticed before the GEV-PC. Personally I'd change things to read that infantry always dismounts whenever it fires and also at the start of any overrun and move the infantry mount phase to be the last action in a player's turn. Kills the Cheesemobile if nothing else. See http://www.io.com/~hcobb/gev/2001/gevnov04.txt The usual reason why a munchkin will drop a HVY's mobility down to Lt is to shoehorn a 3/3 gun under the 6VP limit. I've forgotten the rules to being a LAD again. Paul can you help us out here? -HJC] ============================== From: Servitor@aol.com Subject: Moutain Tanks > While tracks allow you a BIT off the roads, they > STILL do not handle 20+ degree slopes for miles on end or at high speeds. Which is one of the reasons you see a lot of new "tank" designs in the 30 to 40 ton range with wheels instead of tracks. Advances in engines, hulls, suspension (and the material the "tires" are made of) have narrowed the gap between what tracks can do over wheels. I've seen some video of these descendents of Cadillac Gage's, and the six and eight wheel models can cross over trenches almost as big as tracks can. They can also carry just as big a gun (with auxillary weapon systems) in just as big of a turret. They're still a little more delicate than full-blown tracked AFVs, but only by a little, and the gap is narrowing. In fact, I'd be tempted to think that archaic armor in the game would more likely be wheeled than tracked. Oops! Darn, there goes my excuse to use M1A1s from Microarmor for my archaic armor units. Hmmm. Got those "Mobile Units" from Fortress America though... best, John Hurtt (Servitor@aol.com) ===== From: Sethkimmel@aol.com Subject: Moutain Tanks > 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*. >> However, they're both D0 against avalanches...:-) ===== [http://www.angelfire.com/yt/stephenbaldwin/thebeast.html What was the quote: "Only a rock can kill the beast" or something. -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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