====== OGRE Digest, March 25th, 2003 (Last: March 22nd) ======== ===== Strategic Ogre From: David Morse ===== Re: Twilight 2000 From: "Chris French" ===== Engineers From: David Morse ===== playtest Mk VI pricing From: David Morse ============================== From: David Morse Subject: Strategic Ogre > From: "Chris French" >>From: David Morse >>Well, we need to talk about the concept of "wealth" in the last war. >>The actual tanks are going to be produced from their equivalent >>weight in fancy rocks! > > > That depends on what BPC is actually made of -- that mass has > to come from somewhere. (Is BPC made of supercondensed > AOL giveaway CDs? :) ) Biphase carbide: sounds like carbon to me. We're not hurting for that, here on Earth. :) > This is my main problem with the OGREverse (that and all those > nukes) -- it seems to me that the only people with jobs are com- > puter programmers, managers, and the lucky SOB who invents > something. Yes, even the humble deliveryman has been supplanted by Dread-Ex. *er* Soldiers still have their jobs, and that sets a precedent that can be extended to the civilian population. I wonder if a rear area facstate brain, unburdened by enemy ECM, is simultaneously micromanaging thousands of drones. I think not, compute power hopefully hits a wall shortly after very very expensive military AIs become self-aware. This (plus fear of EMP shockwave) leaves room for humans as "middle managers". They rely on computers to do many mundane tasks, such as figuring balistics trajectories and filtering their spam. After the dawn of the Factory States Era, they reley on the AIs to make long term strategic decisions, but in between these extremes they still have a niche in figuring out how to grow algae and scavenge equiment. Human+Factory should be symbiotic in theorey. The interesting GURPS adventures happen when there's a breakdown: (1) The players find out the factory is building LOTS of AIs, and preparing to "cleanse the fleshlings". (2) Renegade humans plan to sack a factory for its loot, but the local inhabitants (players) will be SOL if their factory buys it. Er, rereading the GURPS Ogre timeline, I see that "advances in fabrication revolutionize industry" (paraphrased from memory) don't occur until 2090, just two years prior to the end of the Com-Pan war. So I guess before that there were more conventional economics, where a heavy tank costs a boatload of money. > No wonder the OGREs decided to take over. :) > > >>I'll just throw it out there and see if it floats. > > > Why cripple [a factory], when you can blow it away completely, and > force them to start all over? Hm, I guess my tenuous logic doesn't float. :) "Operation Newspaper" has always been a bit of a stretch. >>My money's on the superheavy! :) > > > I'll take the LGEVs, who can always outrun the SHVY on open > ground, and only have to get lucky once. The SHVY only has to shoot two of the LGEVs to become invincible - even rolling straight 1s. If the superheavy gets the first shot on two LGEVs, it will win the matchup 100% of the time. If the LGEVs get first shot, they get a trifiling 1-2 attack, and assuming they miss, the SHVY comes over and stomps two of them. Well, in a perfect textbook encirclement the SHVY can only paste one per turn, but in practice this is easy to prevent on any published map - surf the board edge, or go underwater, or use a crater, or something. ===== [You've seen my design for the Combine LGEV, with the hardpoints on the wings? Makes the battle agains the Superheavy a lot quicker. Speaking of Superheavies, you can buy one for less than the 90 million Combine dollars that the brain of the Mk I costs. That's just the brain, no guns, armor or treads included. GO50 says a Factory Worker makes $350 a month so it'll be a while before we see Rosie the riveter robot. Also BPC may be made mostly of carbon, but so are the micro-diamonds it's made of. Due to the exact manufacturing required the stuff costs $200 a pound. -HJC] ============================== From: "Chris French" Subject: Re: Twilight 2000 > From: AvaheilDotter@aol.com > FAR too depressing. ESPECIALLY with the casualty rates of T-2000... Actually, the unit death rate was what inspired the idea. That, and all those nukes. > [They can't possibly die faster than infantry up against Ogres. -HJC] That's why the Fuzzy-Wuzzy Approach never mentions INF. Realize: A Mk. 5 has 16 repeating guns, plus six one-shots. Of those weapons, half of them are ONLY useful against INF. An all-armor force (if the player can get away with it) of 150 pts. is a lot more effective than a mixed force of 150 pts. > [Works fine against light tanks, but Heavies like to lurk in the > woods. -HJC] Mmm -- foliage. > [I may have unleashed a horror greater than Ogrethulhu. > > Hello Ogre vs the Hovertubbies. "Sir, we have a problem. One of our troops wants to attend the screening of _The Rocky Horror Picture Show_." "Which troop?" "OGRE 4489, sir. And it's wearing BPC fishnets." > As for employment it seems that 90 percent of the people in 2070 will > be employed passing files back and forth at HMOs. -HJC] Not having health insurance, I don't know if this is a slam against HMOs, or a comment about _O_ casualty rates. That said, I think this is also a job for the autofacs. Basically, when someone does develop a robot that can do all of humanity's menial tasks, what the upper 2% of society is go- ing to do to the other 98% is going to make the Holocaust look like the pie fight at the end of _Dr. Strangelove_. And now for something completely different: A few weeks back, I commented on the lack of TO&Es for the various _O_ nations, and how I was trying to adapt _Twilight: 2000_ TO&Es for the purpose, except that about half the units described in the GDW product do not exist in _O_. To illustrate what I mean, I quote the following (all from _NATO Vehicle Guide_). Brackets indicate comments by me, as well as what sort of _O_ unit might fill the role (if any): UK Mechanized Infantry Battalion (Combine): HQ And HQ Company 25[!?] APC or IFV [GEV-PCs or D1 Hovertrucks] 4 Armored Cars (Scout platoon) [none] 8 Mortars (Mortar platoon) [none] 16 Anti-Tank Guided Missiles (AT platoon) [HW INF?] Mechanized Infantry Company (4x) 15 APC or IFV [GEV-PCs or D1 Hovertrucks] German Mixed Panzergrenadier Battalion [Paneurope]: HQ and HQ Company: 2 APC [GEV-PC] 2 IFV-based TacOps Centers [GEV-PC or Hovertruck?] Panzergrenadier Company (2x) 12 APC [GEV-PC] 9 ATGM [HW INF?] Panzer Company (1x) 13 MBT [HVY] Combat Support Company 4 SP Mortars [none] 2 ATGM tanks [MSL] Turkish Mechanized Infantry Battalion [Arabian Confederation]: HQ Company 4 APC [Hovertruck?] Mechanized Infantry Company (3x) 12 APC (wheeled or tracked) [obsolete APC?] 4 Jeeps w/ 106mm Recoilless Rifles [none] Combat Support Company (1x) 4 Mortars [none] 4 APC (wheeled or tracked) [obsolete APC?] 4 ATGM tanks [MSL] And I haven't even bothered to mention units like US Armored Cavalry Regiments (equipped with helicopters and AA weapon- ry). This is what I have to work with -- please understand why I'd like to see *some* vehicle variety (provided said units make sense -- none of that silliness that Mr. Cobb pointed me toward, thanks. :) ) CF ["You can't fight in here! This is a War Room!"] ===== [Infantry are very important to the way I do fuzzies. If other people ignore them I can see why they think the Ogre advanced scenario is balanced. -HJC] ============================== From: David Morse Subject: Engineers > From: AvaheilDotter@aol.com > << 'm thinking about engies. I'm kinda underwhelmed with them at the > moment. Yeah revetments are neat and all that, but I simply saddle up > in a GEV and force them to come out and fight in the clear. >> > > It is called rubble, and if an engineer can remove it, they should be > able to emplace it to block roads or creat hazards for GEV's trying to cross. > Currently you can shoot at a road in OM, but not I think in Ogre Hex. Aha! That's what that's called. :) I think its a better idea than my proposal. Either making significant amounts of rubble or trenches seems like its something that could be done before a scenario starts, but probably not during a game. The practical solution to creating real time terrain will be land mines. Unfortunately the optional rule mines in GEV stink. I guess at this point it would be ok to "backport" mine rules from OMinis. They don't discuss in-game deployment, do they? ===== [OM28 gives rules for Engineers placing big nukes. I would assume that they place ordinary minefields too, but too slowly to show in game terms. ("Hurry it up you apes, those are only very sensitive nuclear charges after all!") OM48 has the rules for Cruise missile delivery of mines, so why not use smaller missiles? Buy missile emplaced mines for 1 point per square inch counter and secretly assign them to missile tanks or howitzers. During these units normal (not overrun) fire phase, instead of their normal attack they can emplace mines, take one square inch counter for a missile tank or light howitzer or one or two for a full or mobile howitzer and place them anywhere within the normal range of the unit (if two counters are placed they must be adjacent to each other), then any enemy units within range of the target point at the moment of placement may fire at the missiles carrying the mines as if they were cruise missiles to knock them down before the mines are emplaced, if they fail the minefield is placed and remains until cleared by Engineers. During initial setup Heavy Weapons squads or Ogre missiles may be noted as being mine warheads instead. There is no extra cost, but these missiles cannot be used for their normal attacks. Each squad gets one square inch mine counter and each Ogre missile gets two counters and these are emplaced as above. -HJC] ============================== From: David Morse Subject: playtest Mk VI pricing Does anyone else think 250 victory points for the playtest Mark VI seems about 20 VP too high? Playtest Mark VI: 3 racks, 12 internal missiles, 6 external missiles, 3 main, 6 secondary, 16 AP, 75 treads @ M3 Mark III & Mark V: 8 external missiles, 3 main, 10 secondary, 20 AP, 105 treads: 250 VP. The 3 under-loaded missile racks about balance the duo's 2 extra external missiles and 4 extra secondaries. But then the duo has 30 more treads and way more AP, plus the ability to split its forces, which is always handy when being attacked by GEVs. Ayup, I think 250 VP is too high for the ol' playtest VI. I tried to formulate a similar argument for the playtest Dopp versus two Fencers, which are conveniently 125 VP each, but its not as pronounced. (And not pronounced by me here :) ===== [The tread advantage is deceptive because the Mk VI rams so much better than the other Ogres. See OM35 for Mk VIs crumbling up superheavy tanks for the recycling bin. -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. This material is used here in accordance with the SJ Games online policy at http://www.sjgames.com/general/online_policy.html