============ The Ogre Digest, Mar 28th (Last: Mar 22nd) ============= ===== Scenario contest From: Steve Jackson ===== [sjgames-illuminator] Design An Ogre Scenario And Win! From: webmaster@sjgames.com ===== C.E.V. From: Sumnerd1234@cs.com ===== GEV Paintjobs and my other rants. From: Sumnerd1234@cs.com ===== Battlesuit: Snipers From: Todd Zircher From: Sethkimmel@aol.com From: Charles Barnett From: "Blount, Stephen" ===== Two Mark IIIs vs 22 Armor & 30 Infantry? From: "Andrew Walters" ===== New maps From: Terry Hewitt ===== GURPS Ogre Discrepancies? From: Charles Barnett ===== Nose Art on MHWZ From: Michael Powers ===== GEV-WW and Area of Effect From: Michael Powers ===== Ogre Tread Losses During Ramming From: Jeadams1@aol.com ============================== From: Steve Jackson Subject: Scenario contest The Ogre scenario design contest sponsored by Wounds Unlimited has drawn a big ONE entry so far... 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. ===== [Gee Steve, maybe if you'd send in some sort of flashy ad to the list of people most likely to consider the offer... -HJC] ============================== From: webmaster@sjgames.com Subject: [sjgames-illuminator] Design An Ogre Scenario And Win! The most creative people that we work with here at Steve Jackson Games are undoubtedly our customers. Now it's time for the Ogre ( http://www.sjgames.com/ogre/ ) fans to shine! We're running a scenario design contest ( http://www.woundsunlimited.com/contests/ogre.html ) in partnership with Wounds Unlimited ( http://www.woundsunlimited.com/ ), and the prize is $100 worth of individual Ogre Miniatures! Head on over to their site for all the juicy details, and good luck! -- Ben Kimball ( http://www.io.com/~mib/ ) ===== [That's better. -HJC] ============================== From: Sumnerd1234@cs.com Subject: C.E.V. Now that there are combat engineers in OGRE/GEV I think they need a little additional protection on the battlefield. Most modern armies use some type of armored vehicle for forward area engineering tasks. The Israeli's have anew vehicle out that's equipped with reactive armor, smoke dischargers (both regular and hot smoke) IR. jammers, and some other goodies. I figure that in the Ogre universe, they would also have some type of point defense system, radar and laser jammers, recon/scout drones, and other advanced equipment. Combat Engineering Vehicle (CEV) A1, R 2 (4"), D3, M 3 (6") Move: HVY, 9 victory points Based on a modified Heavy Tank chassis, with most of the weapons systems removed and outfitted with additional defensive systems. The weapons would be replaced by engineering equipment and towing gear. CEVs can detect, clear and lay mines. Cut or repair roads, plant demolition charges, etc., just like Combat Engineers; it can also tow vehicles, clear forest, and rubble hexes, and dig revetments. Also why not let howitzers be towed. Say by a heavy truck, or an armored vehicle. It could not fire in the turn it moved and would have to spend one turn emplacing in its new position. Vehicles towing the howitzer would have their speed reduced by two (4") but would always be capable of moving at least 1 hex (2"). ===== [I polled my support company and all my engineers prefer their TOE GEV-PCs, cause they can flee Ogres better. -HJC] ============================== From: Sumnerd1234@cs.com Subject: GEV Paintjobs and my other rants. >>I don't know if present-day armored companies have unit insignas US Army Armored Calvary Regiments, Separate Brigades, and Army divisions all have their own insignia. The French have insignias made all the way down to individual platoon level. I've seen the Germans make them down to company level. I could not sleep the other night and started going through the archives. I came across an article on alternate terrain rules and rules for wheeled vehicles. I've always wondered about the wheeled vehicle rules. Apparently they have not seen some of the new wheeled armored vehicles on the market today. The French, South Africans, Italians, and several other European countries make extensive use of wheeled armored fighting vehicles. In some types of terrain they actually perform better than tracked vehicles and they allow the vehicle to reach higher road speeds. If I get around to it I just may come up with some alternate wheeled vehicle rules. As for alternate terrain types, I'm hoping that they will produce additional maps in the near future that provide a little more diversified terrain. Say desert, tundra, marsh/wetlands, a large urban area, a beach, or hills and mountains. I'd pay a few bucks for a full scale color Iron Mountain map. I'd still like to see them produce a naval Ogre variant. They could use a larger scale than used in the current game, and say 10 Kilometers to a hex. The first edition should keep it really simple, like the original Ogre, and then add more complexity after the bugs are worked out. I figure the y could call the first edition Dreadnoughts. ============================== From: Todd Zircher Subject: Battlesuit: Snipers >> ... Remember the kinetic energy of an object is equal to the mass >> of the object multiplied by the velocity SQUARED ... even a 4mm Du >> round would give you a lot of mass to play with... > > It follows, then, that ALL other variables being equal a bigger round > does more damage. (Yes, I do realize the physical ramifications of such a > statement.) Given the woven nature of PBC, wider is not better. A needle-nosed flechette might be an optimal design for an anti-PBC round. The extra length would allow you to pack in more mass without increasing cross section and drag. -- TAZ ===== From: Sethkimmel@aol.com Subject: Battlesuit: Snipers In a message dated 3/21/01 6:19:54 AM !!!First Boot!!!, hcobb@io.com writes: << That would depend on a lot of things. I seem to rememebr that one of the nastiest weapons in MegaTraveller was the 4mm Gauss Pistols due to rediculous velocity you got on the rounds. Remember the kinetic energy of an object is equal to the mass of the object multiplied by the velocity SQUARED. Double the velocity, four times the Kinetic energy. And even a 4mm Du round would giev you a lot of mass to play with... >> This starts GREAT flamewars on gun lists between "big slow bullets" (I love a . 45..) fans, and the "small-fast as h**l bullet" fans... OB Trav: I have no idea-maybe energy weapon fans Vs Gauss weapon aficionados? ===== From: Charles Barnett Subject: Battlesuit: Snipers Patrick O'Donnell said: > SO, if you are going to play around with gauss or railguns anyway why >stay at 4mm? I have to stick by the statement in my last post. The sniper of >the future will not carry anything smaller than .50 Cal (12.7mm). The problem is recoil. There will be some point at which that becomes unacceptably high for a rifle, whether you have amplified muscles or not. If you want to get more punch, there are three ways to get it. You can make the bullet bigger. At the recoil limit, you now need to put it on a mount. Now you have something less like a rifle than a crew-served weapon. You can make the bullet faster. Same remark. You can give your bullet a warhead. In the extreme, here you trade velocity for mass to get as much explosive to the target as possible. Now you have a grenade launcher. If you want a better sniper rifle, let's see how you can have one as good as the .50 caliber at the recoil limit. If you halve bullet mass and speed it up by a factor of square root of two, you have exactly the same kinetic energy. But momentum, and thus recoil, has fallen about 30%. Now you can get more kinetic energy by making it faster still, while still staying inside the recoil limit. I've ignored the complicated subject of terminal ballistics, but you see the point. Kinetic energy rises as the square of velocity, but momentum rises only linearly. This is why hard-sf gauss weapons have such small calibers. ===== From: "Blount, Stephen" Subject: Battlesuit: Snipers >>Do you mean something like that round that Gene Simons' character had in the movie *Runaway*? You know, that round that got the *Heart Rate Frequency* of a single individual fed into its guidance systems through the appurtenant weapon's *Aiming system.* That round that, "...Literally has your name on it?" KEW-el. I like it. As much as I hate to admit that I know what you're talking about, yes. Only not as hokey. It wouldn't be that amazing in the context of the other rounds being fired, since just about every munition is guided and propelled. The difference between usage of the terms "missile," "bullet," and "shell" being really one of tradition by the 2080's. --Stephen Blount ============================== From: "Andrew Walters" Subject: Two Mark IIIs vs 22 Armor & 30 Infantry? The Ogre rules discuss a scenario where the attacker gets two Mark IIIs and the defender gets the Advanced scenario defense (20 armor and 30 inf) plus two extra armor units. We discussed this today and decided it favored the Ogres. Then we tried it. It *really* seemed to favor the Ogres. Point-wise, this optional scenario gives the attackers two 100 point ogres instead of a single 150 point unit, a gain of fifty points. The defender gets two armor units, a gain of twelve units. Component wise, the attacker gets 30 more treads (45+45-60), two more secondary batteries, and four more missles. The defender gets two armor units. While in the basic scenario you have a Mark III against 12 & 20, in this case each Mark III is only facing 11 & 15. So what are we missing? My opponent felt the defense should get more armor units. I'm guessing that since this note has been in the rules a very long time, its probably received some playtesting and is in fact fair, but there's some way the defense can be more efficient, some weakness of the two Mark IIIs that must be exploited, to make two Mark IIIs vs 22&30 work. Anyone know what the secret is? Anyone tried it? Playing against two mark IIIs was a lot of fun, so it would be great to know how to balance this scenario. Andrew ===== [Actually, the Mark-IIIs are down two missiles vs a Mark-V. Take 22 GEVs and deploy 30 single squads of infantry and fuzzy to death. Spread out the infatry so that any Ogre that goes chasing GEVs leaves itself open to infatry attack. (Only stack the infantry when they're adjacent to an Ogre.) GEVs have essentially the same defense strength as heavies against secondaries and they're a lot harder to catch. Single squads lose an "average" of one squad vs secondaries vs an average of one and third when in full platoons. (Double squads are almost as good, but suffer more from mains and AP.) For a good four player game take the two Mark-IIIs attacking mod on the Mark-III on defense scenario. -HJC] ============================== From: Terry Hewitt Subject: New maps I've created two preliminary versions of coastline maps for use in amphibious landing scenarios. Check them out at http://members.theglobe.com/Londoner54/coastline.html Send me any comments or suggestions you might have. Thanks Terry Hewitt ============================== From: Charles Barnett Subject: GURPS Ogre Discrepancies? Andrew Walters said: >I'd love to read more about SJ's comments on this, is that on the web >anywhere? The Pyramid boards? I love GO as a source for stories, >scenarios, etc. After I posted, I regretted that I didn't look for a URL or quote to give. I saw it on the web somewhere, but I couldn't find it when I searched for it after posting. I'm glad Stephen Blount saw it too. It didn't amount to much. Something like a one-line remark about it not being consistent with the Vehicles system. ============================== From: Michael Powers Subject: Nose Art on MHWZ Ogre Miniatures mentions 'nose art' on Superheavies; the MHWZ seems to be built on the same chassis, so I guess it's not much of a stretch. -- Michael Powers Graduate Student, GWU/JIAFS NASA Langley Research Center (757) 864 4457 -- m.t.powers@larc.nasa.gov ============================== From: Michael Powers Subject: GEV-WW and Area of Effect With my "protect a certain number of 'Sizes', and they can be in the same hex or an adjacent hex", I was assuming that units aren't dead-center in a hex. The map grid just gives a relative 'spacing' between units, so there's a bit of slack in the display as to what the actual distance is between the units. I'm thinking that it's possible to have some sort of emitter field that extends outward far enough that there's a thin band outside the range of 'spillover' yet inside the field. There certainly isn't much to this band; that's why there's only a limited number of units (i.e., a limited Size) that can fit under the curtain. Also, the units must all be in just the right position relative to each other; another good reason for the Size limit. Also, this 'jammer' probably doesn't actually stealth things, or make them disappear; it probably creates huge numbers of noise and dummy targets in the area. For example, a detector array might see forty LGEVs in the area rather than four, and no way of telling which is 'really there'. -- Michael Powers Graduate Student, GWU/JIAFS NASA Langley Research Center (757) 864 4457 -- m.t.powers@larc.nasa.gov ============================== From: Jeadams1@aol.com Subject: Ogre Tread Losses During Ramming If I am playing Ogre scenarios using Ogre ramming rules, how many treads does an Ogre lose when ramming a light tank or a light GEV? Jim ===== [One. -HJC] Henry J. Cobb ogre@sjgames.com Archives at http://www.io.com/~hcobb All OGRE-related items Copyright (c) 2001, by Steve Jackson Games.