> On Wed, 4 Nov 1998, Rick Norman wrote:
> Watch a MkV (big,big, very big,)roll across the field, turning your
Actually, Ogres in DS2 tend to die. We've played (the group of us here in
Victoria) a couple games with Ogres, under various designs. They're big
targets, easy to hit, and you just whale on them until you draw a BOOM or a
big handful of reds. (or you get MDCs or DFFGs in close, and kill it that way.
With four firecons and arty, Ogres kill several vehicles per turn. But there's
lots of fire incoming...
We've never used nukes, which would change things a lot - ds2 nukes are
much scarier than Ogre boardgame nukes. One of my regular gaming partners has
a whole load of Ogre minis, however, so he's still trying to find a
way to re-create their power in DS2 without going completely over the
top.
DS2 is an armoured combat game - not a super tank game. Ogres tend to
bend the construction system a great deal, and the combat system even more.
They are, however, very very cool...
> We've never used nukes, which would change things a lot - ds2 nukes
Go over the top and see how it feels, then back it down as needed. OGREs
are nothing if not "over-the-top" tanks.
> DS2 is an armoured combat game - not a super tank game. Ogres tend to
I wasn't actually thinking of using OGREs; it is certainly possible to play
the game with only normal armored vehicles. SJ Games website has links to
archives which have a formula to generate new units. If anyone wants, email me
and I'll attach a couple of HTML files to my response.
The way we have treated OGREs is that Boom chits only affect Targeted systems.
Each individual weapon must be targeted individually and tread damage is
scored by causing an amount of tread point damage equal to the grade of the
weapon.
OGREs can be Scary....
Try convincing that militia squad to close assault a 30 meter fusion powered
Biphase carbide armored AI juggernaut...
Michael Wikan Game Design Slave Zero Accolade, Inc.
http://www.slavezero.com
> -----Original Message-----
> At 10:00 AM 11/5/98 -0800, you wrote:
Now that makes a lot of sense. And it's consistent with the way things work in
the original game. It makes sense that each system would be highly
compartmentalized to prevent catastrophic "Booms".
Of course, by design, an OGRE can do a lot of things that crewed vehicles
cannot. Like moving cross-country at speeds that would tend to be ...
unpleasant... for a tank crew. And shrugging off near misses that would leave
a crew pretty rattled.
> OGREs can be Scary....
Damn right.
> Try convincing that militia squad to close assault a 30 meter
Using the close combat rules from GEV infantry are a killer in good terrain.
Unfortunately, OGREs get most of the same advantages. I remember that being a
good way to clear out a nest of full strength infantry squads. The OGRE might
not be too pretty afterward; but then, that's what they're made for.
"Sir, THAT building over there is moving toward me and it looks piss'd off..."
last words of Lt Pfuff.
> ---Mike Wikan <MWikan@mailhost.accolade.com> wrote:
I rarely play unmodified DSII with Orge or Battletech fiqures. I do play a
modified DSII with BT. I was not clear in my statement I was talk about the
Orge Miniatures game.
> ---Brian Burger <burger00@camosun.bc.ca> wrote:
> Brian Burger wrote:
We had the same problem with Ogres being killed easy so we came up with a easy
saving throw system and a morale system to see if thoughs green troops route
on seeing a 10,000 ton vehicle. David
http://members.wbs.net/homepages/d/i/r/dirtsideii.html
> We've never used nukes, which would change things a lot - ds2 nukes
> On Fri, 6 Nov 1998, David wrote:
part of the problem is that ds2 assumes that many things, eg powerplants, have
a cost proportional to size, when in reality larger powerplants are
(generally) more efficient. armour too: the mass of armour is (roughly) equal
to its density times the mean thickness multiplied by the surface area of the
vehicle, which is proportional to the square of the cube root of the mass, so
the cost per unit thickness should increase as
the 2/3 power of vehicle mass. in ds2 it increases linearly.
this is not a major problem at the scale of vehicles in sizes 1 to 5, which i
think is roughly up to 100 tonnes (a hefty mbt is 60 tonnes, or size 3, so 1
size point is 20 tonnes, ish), but if you want to build a
4000-tonne land battleship (to use a steampunk term) it means you are
paying over the odds something chronic - by 16 times, i think.
of course, larger things are never designed as efficiently...
i think the major problems with supertanks these days is (a) they cannot
use cover very well and (b) mobility - ground pressure will rise in
proportion to 1/3 power of mass, and supertanks will just sink in damp
ground.
you could make an argument that both of these drop out in the deep future, due
to electronics and grav motors. after all, at sea, where these are not issues,
the trend (before subs) was clearly towards larger and larger warships. subs
have changed all this as the detection and fighting range is quite short; the
best way to use 100,000 tonnes is to build a great big carrier (or battleship,
or missile ship, depending on your tech) in the middle and deploy loads of
little ships as ASW defences. the same might
apply to tanks in the future, when infantry take the place of subs -
they can get in close without being noticed (especially when the ground is
cratered from hours of ogre fights) and only have a real punch at short range.
then, you have an ogre or squadron of ogres, with little (poss down to size 2)
escorts buzzing about hunting for infantry, mines, sensors,
hidden units, etc. having found some, they open up with rfac/2 or apsw,
or call in fire from the ogre if it's serious.
Tom