====== OGRE Digest, November 8th (Last: November 6th) ======== ===== Battletech From: "Chris French" ===== Opportunity Fire From: AvaheilDotter@aol.com ===== Alternate play sequence From: David Morse ===== Macrotures tactics From: Servitor@aol.com ===== Subs and Micronukes From: Sethkimmel@aol.com From: "Charles Barnett" ===== BYOO 2: the rewrite From: stephan beal ============================== From: "Chris French" Subject: Battletech > While I am myself back to paper and cardboard Ogre, Battletech started out > as Battle Droids, with plastic models not as a pure-paper game. I have never seen a copy of _Battledroids_ myself. [ http://www.heavygauss.com/Droidsmain.html -HJC] > "Tuesday's test -- the first time a laser had shot down an artillery > shell was part of a new series to determine MTHEL requirements and > demonstrate the system's capabilities against a wide range of airborne > targets. " So? David Drake's been talking about shooting down artillery shells with beam weapons since his first _Hammer's Slammers_ story. Also: Other than the cost to make and shape that much BPC, why can't airplanes be made of it? (It's the _OGRE_ version of the old joke about making the plane out of the stuff the black box is made from. :) ) So long as the bird stays either very low and very close, or very high and very far away.... [The higher you fly the more lasers can see you and these lasers already chop up GEVs. -HJC] > [Alright, enough with the press clippings. > > My take on the Mark IV. > > If you take the standard Cobb assumptions (The STP of the OGREverse?), STP? Umm, all I can think of here is the oil treatment that sponsored Richard Petty for lo those many years. [From now on it means Stone Temple Pilots, OK? -HJC] > one-shot weapons are worth a third of an unlimited weapon because the > unlimited weapon gets shot off after an average of three shots. > > If that's the case then the Mark IV has only got fifty percent more > missile power than a Mark V and that's very unhealthy for it as it's got > only half the mains and a third the secondaries. > > However, if the Mark IV can use all of its missiles and then withdraw > before losing a rack it's got two and a half times the missile power of a > Mark V. Define "all its missiles" here -- do you mean all 15 missiles, or the 5 missiles each rack "has"? (Yes, I know any rack can use any mis- sile.) Also keep in mind: External missiles can be shot at just like Missile Racks; if the armor moves fast, it might take out one or two before getting plonked. I've never seen anyone playing _OGRE_ who didn't salvo his missiles at the first instant -- if it's to clear away a horde of HVYs, well and good; if it's to waste incoming soap bub- bles, oh well. In either case, missiles are a "first use" item; they're always the first thing the armor blows off. So a Mk.V can missile 6 targets in one turn, while a IV can missile only three; but the IV can shoot three up to five times. The V's mis- sile attacks can be impressive, but it's not repeatable. > This says to me that while the missiles on those two OGREs may look > the same, they're used in entirely different ways. > > First, the Mark V never missiles the same armor unit twice. Toss a > missile at a GEV and on a D result, close to range three or hopefully two > and finish it off, usually with a pair of secondaries because a smart Mark > V isn't diving into more targets than it's got guns to cover. > > And the same thing with the main batteries. The Mark V stuns it's > prey with a main then runs over it on the next turn. (Works even better > in GEV than in standard OGRE.) Yes -- ramming does damage to the OGRE; overrun (hopefully) doesn't. > The point is that the Mark V is firing and moving forwards and it has > to keep moving forwards or the targets it merely disables will recover and > come after it later. See next remark. > If a Mark IV attempts to dive into the middle of the armor pool it's > going to sink, as it simply doesn't have enough short range guns to off > the disabled and also clear the area. With MP 4 (for a while, anyway) the IV doesn't have to clear the area -- it disables the fast movers and as many of the Big Guns as it can, then hauls --- for the Objective. By the time the D'd units get their heads screwed back on, the IV is a distant memory. > So when the Mark IV gets a D result on a > GEV Umm, why have you not yet mentioned any unit besides GEVs? Mk.IVs do meet up with their share of HVYs. >it follows it up with a second missile and it probally doesn't head off > in that direction next turn, or at least it doesn't leave an obvious path > so all the possibilities have to be covered and at 4 hexes a turn with a > five hex firing range, that's a lot of area to cover. And with the 9-hex "withdraw reach", there's no chance in hell that any unit with a serious Attack Value will ever get close enough to hit, unless the IV screws up -- or lets it. >:) > Overruns are a lot more scary for the Mark IV when any squad of > infantry might clip a rack, With a whole INF platoon having only a 1 in 3 chance of clipping a rack, that's a cursed big "might" there. And the INF can't catch the IV either. CF ===== [The platoon has three 1/6th chances of snipping a rack means the average loss is half a rack. You shoot at external missiles first? -HJC] ============================== From: AvaheilDotter@aol.com Subject: Opportunity Fire << In conventional OGRE, GEVs are deadly in anything besides Sher- wood Forest; in this case, they learn to scout, flank, and stay the ---- out of the way of the trackslappers. :) >> At the risk of creating a lot of new counters on the game, what Ogre has ALWAYS lacked was opportunity fire. Why have light tanks been pushed aside? The (tactical) DEFENDER usually gets the first shot. In ogre, this is completely reversed. Have your GEV motor up to range of a heavy and INSTANTLY exchange fire and see which unit becomes the prefered on fo an assault... Ad Astra! Stan Leghorn ===== [Have a Lt Tank waiting out in the open, behind a minefield. -HJC] ============================== From: David Morse Subject: Alternate play sequence >>So >>here's another suggestion: > >This assumes that the faster a unit is, the better its reaction speed. >Watch a NASCAR race at Talladega or Daytona sometime -- faster >is deader. (Hint: At 200 MPH, a car is traveling one football field >every second; it takes 1.5 seconds to react to someone checking up >in front of one. Now imagine some schlub moving 20 MPH into that >same situation. Do the math, DW. :) ) If you carefully studied my sequence of play, you would notice that GEVs only got 2 moves after the last move of a MSL tank, not 4. So yes, they're more nimble than MSL, but not /infinately/ nimble: > 1) Move phase 1 - All units with 3 or more MP move > 2) Move phase 2 - All units with 1 or more MP move > 3) Move phase 3 - All units with 2 or more MP move > 4) Move phase 4 - All units with 4 or more MP move > 5) Move phase 5 - All units with 5 MP move (road bonus) > 6) Go get snacks phase > 7) Conventional Fire Phase - everyone gets to fire. Resolve effects > simultaneously. > 8) Gev move phase 1 - *-1 and faster GEVs move > 9) Gev move phase 2 - *-2 and faster GEVs move > 10) Gev move phase 3 - *-3 and faster GEVs move > 11) Gev move phase 4 - *-4 GEVs move (road bonus) This breaks up the movement into phases, ala Car Wars. There is still the question of who moves first when nearby enemies are scheduled to move at the same time. Within that phase, slower units move first. If there's a tie, flip a coin, loser must move all his units of that speed in that particular phase first, followed by the winner. ============================== From: Servitor@aol.com Subject: Macrotures tactics > The point is that the Mark V is firing and moving forwards and it has > to keep moving forwards or the targets it merely disables will recover and > come after it later. Damn straight! In every OGRE Macrotures game I've run, hesitant MK Vs = dead Ogres. But you can't do this with the MK IV. Just ask any Fencer veteran... -and the MB upgrade just means you can be a tad more effective when the racks run dry (or get shot off). BTW, OGRE Macrotures now has a permanent home here in Florida at Sci-Fi-City. It gets played every three months (alternating with our other "Mega-Games" every 4th Sunday of the month) with the next play date scheduled for Sunday, Nov. 24 at 12 noon here at the store. If any of you folks plan to be in Florida during that weekend and can stop by, please email me for directions to the store (or use MapQuest) and I will save you a spot in the game. (And, yes, you get to pick whether you want to be a MK V or a Defense commander IF you show up on time...) Hmmm, we hope to add MHWZs and LGEVs to our macrotures force, maybe we should consider adding a MK IV. Oh, and to the kind soul out there that pointed out the four foot inflatible Godzilla (Gojira?)'s usefulness if we wanted to run "Godzilla 2072"... -uhm, thanks. But, no. There's just too much potential for abuse with this idea. best, John Hurtt (Servitor@aol.com) -Yes, I'm a Game Geek. How did you know? -Please visit my website at: http://hometown.aol.com/Servitor/Ogreindex/ogrindex.htm "Walk softly and carry a big stick" Personally, I prefer a taser. Lots more fun... ============================== From: Sethkimmel@aol.com Subject: Subs and Micronukes > Or the SKINCs everyother unit in the game uses. (Sub-Kiloton > Insertable Nuclear Components -- basically mini-nukes; between > the blast and the water-hammer effect, even a near miss drops the > SSN. Read _The Sixth Battle_ for details.) YEAH!!! BPC sub, meet Mr. SUBROC...:-) (how BIG was the warhead anyway, or is that still classified?) ===== From: "Charles Barnett" Subject: Subs and Micronukes On 6 Nov, Chris French said: >Or the SKINCs everyother unit in the game uses. (Sub-Kiloton >Insertable Nuclear Components -- basically mini-nukes; between >the blast and the water-hammer effect, even a near miss drops the >SSN. Read _The Sixth Battle_ for details.) There are three orders of magnitude between a Rattler's warhead and a kiloton. A SATNUC submunition seems to be 500 *pounds* equivalent yield. Plus, OGRE's nukes aren't just small, they're precise, shaped. Though I can understand if you want to ignore GURPS OGRE. I'm a hopeless hard sinus-friction wonk; I like things to be internally self-consistent. Nothing against SJ; any sf will eventually get caught out. More man-hours go into picking it apart than went into writing it. Making the effort anyhow is what's important. >What I have for my naval OGRE rules is that submerged units al- >ways move after surface units; the sub may flee or charge as it sees >fit, while the surface units have to wait for it to do whatever it's >doing. (I borrowed this from my modified FASA _Star Trek_ rules -- Simultaneous surface ship movement, then all subs? Is that what you're saying? ===== [Another take on subs can be found at http://www.sjgames.com/ogre/board/article.cgi?2882 -HJC] ============================== From: stephan beal Subject: BYOO 2: the rewrite Yo, fellas, Some of you may have seen the BYOO, Build Your Own Ogre page: http://byoo.rootonfire.org i've been re-writing it the past few nights to integrate it into a different web framework: http://radioaqtiph2.rootonfire.org/?r_app=BYOO Or, if you want to see it with some "Ogreverse Atmosphere": http://radioaqtiph2.rootonfire.org/?r_colorscheme=OldGreenTerminalColorScheme&r_app=BYOO Most of your submitted Ogres from the old system are also in this one. i deleted anything worth over 450 VP, though those are all still in the old system (and will stay there). Improvements in this version: - Looks *much* nicer :) - Navigate the Ogres in alphabetically-arranged chunks. (But ~40% of the Ogres start with the letter M.) - A "history" of the Ogres you've visited, so you can easily jump between them. (See the left-side menu once you've clicked a few Ogres.) As-yet missing features from old version: - editing/submitting. i hope to re-add these features by the weekend. - HTML-format record forms. The "classic" format is still available, but currently only one per page. i don't think i'll bother with the HTML ones. - search/query. Enjoy! -- ----- stephan@wanderinghorse.net http://qub.sourceforge.net - http://radioaqtiph.sourceforge.net http://countermoves.sourceforge.net - http://stephan.rootonfire.org "Attention is narrowed perception." -- Alan W. Watts ===== [78 VPs for a Ninja? I'll take one. -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