Sea Ogre

[Corbeau]

Just wondering if anyone is interested in a naval combat version of Ogre (compatible with standard Ogre, naturally). I've just finished the stats (yay for the formula) and counters (yay for Illustrator) for conventional naval units, and am probably going to do some cyberships up after finals are over. For once, maps shouldn't be a problem (yay for OgreMap). It's probably been tried before, but I haven't seen anything like it online.

My question is this: would anyone actually help playtest if I put out the counters and rules?

[piningforthefjords]

hell yes!

We could consider testing it w/ cyberboard too.

[tomc]

If you can scrounge up a copy of the OGRE Book, there is an article by Greg Costikyan entitled "Continental Siege Aircraft" and one by Martin Halbert called "BPC Subs".

I found links!

Continental Siege Aircraft:
http://www.sjgames.com/ogre/articles/csa.html

BCP Subs:
http://www.sjgames.com/ogre/articles/bpcsubs.html

And they say the internet is useless...

[Corbeau]

I have the Ogre book and I've read both of those articles. The problem is that they're not at all canon, considering the Ogerverse tendency to blow aircraft out of the sky. The subs are neat, but there's not much of anything on surface vessels.

My current working model of Ogreverse sea warfare is sort of a three-tiered system:

1) Cyberships. The largest of these have heavy guns, laser batteries, smokescreen capability, and cruise missile launchers. Smaller ones have to pick and choose, or just do everything in a much reduced capacity (like land Ogres). I have two of what I think are solid designs. I've taken a few cues from the the Invasion of San Fran scenario in terms of sea vessels. I forget the URL, but it can be googled.

2) Conventional ships. I figure that these are going to be quite small by the standards of today, considering that anything big is going to be an expensive enough investment that you might as well make it a Cybership. Currently, I have three basic ship types: a missile frigate for long range support and shore bombardment, a heavy frigate for hunting shipping, and a corvette for patrol and screening duties. I'm thinking that a frigate is 6 VPs, and a corvette 3 (in line with normal armor).

3) GEVs. Killer bees - no surprise here. Fast and quite capable of killing support ships or missile frigates left unguarded. Also the only sea-capable unit that can move on land, which means that it's a multi-role fighter perfect for invasions.

I'm just not sure how to handle subs. I'm not sure how feasable conventional subs are - I'd think that they'd be tissue paper in terms of taking fire. Cruise missile armed cybersubs might be quite feasable, however.

[tomc]

Originally Posted by Corbeau

I have the Ogre book and I've read both of those articles.

Cool. I was just making sure you knew they existed.

[Corbeau]

A bit more thinking about subs:

What if a sub normally takes fire as spillover fire (units may be able to detect a sub generally, but not specifically) unless it fires itself on the previous turn? Both fragility and record keeping would be easy if the second side of the counter is a "detected" side. Make the sub treat "D" results as "X" results (if it's hit, it's dead - but it's tricky to hit in the first place).

Another way of saying that would be that a sub running quiet (IE, not shooting) treats "D" results as "NE," and an active sub treats "D" results as "X" results.

[DSumner]

There's a thread here on Ogre Naval units, and several articles in Ogre Digest archives, plus some good info by "Atomic Kennedy" in his free "Flashpoint" PDF suppliment.

[piningforthefjords]

Corb - I like the sub idea! Hard to hit if it doesn't fire, easy to if it does.

[Corbeau]

All right. I might as well post these for debate. I have counters for all but the subs currently, and the subs wouldn't take long. I've tried to think through these units well, but it's possible that I've made a dumb balance mistake. If no one has anything to add, then I would think that it's time to move to playtesting.

Corvette
VP: 3
Attack: 2/2
Defense: 3
Move: 4
May not enter any non-water hexes.

Missile Frigate
VP: 6
Attack: 3/5
Defense: 2
Move: 3
May not enter any non-water hexes.

Heavy Frigate
VP: 6
Attack: 4/3
Defense: 3
Move: 4
May not enter any non-water hexes.

Submarine:
VP: 6
Attack: 3/3
Defense: 3
Move: 3
May not enter any non-water hexes. Treats Ds as NEs while the counter is on its Silent side. On its Active side, the sub treats Ds as Xs. The sub is flipped to its Active side whenever it makes an attack of any kind. An Active sub that makes no attacks during its turn is flipped to its Passive side. Combat strength in overruns is doubled due to torpedoes (normal attacks are via missile lauchers). Cannot be targeted by lasers.

Strategic Nuclear Submarine:
VP: 24
Attack: 3/3 + 1 Cruise Missile
Defense: 3
Move: 3
May not enter any non-water hexes. Treats Ds as NEs while the counter is on its Silent side. On its Active side, the sub treats Ds as Xs. The sub is flipped to its Active side whenever it makes an attack of any kind. An Active sub that makes no attacks during its turn is flipped to its Passive side. Combat strength in overruns is doubled due to torpedoes (normal attacks are via missile lauchers). Cannot be targeted by lasers. The sub itself is worth 12 points, while the other 12 are the cruise missile (these 12 are lost when the missile is fired).

A note: take a look at the sub rules and then imagine them in an overrun. A Silent Sub has a very good chance to win when overrunning a Heavy Frigate. I'm not sure if it's too strong (I doubt it) or too weak, but it looks like it'll be a quirky and interesting unit. As yet, I have no Cybersub designs.

Krakens: (my name for Cyberships - though the name would be best applied to Cybersubs)

Destroyer (50 points)
2 Light Naval Batteries (3/3 D3)
2 Missiles (6/5 D3)
2 Smokescreens (special/2 D1)
Move 4
30 hull (10 damage =M3, 20 damage =M2 30 damage=sunk)
May not enter any non-water hexes.

Heavy Cruiser (150 points)
2 Heavy Naval Batteries (4/4 D4)
2 Light Naval Batteries (3/3 D3)
1 Laser Battery (2*/30 D3)
6 Missiles (6/5 D3)
4 Smokescreens (special/2 D1)
Move 4
45 hull (15 damage =m3, 30 damage =m2 45 damage=sunk)
May not enter any non-water hexes.

The effect of a smokescreen is simple: fill the target hex with smoke that blocks line of sight for lasers. That's all it does, and all it needs to do.

[HammerSlammer]

I like the idea, I once wrote an OGRE fiction (well started too, just things got messy) about a Sea Ogre code named Hydra which was a amphibious Ogre making an assault upon a Venezuelan Reactor base during the war with Nova Brasilia. Hydra was more or less a missle heavy cybertank. Although I do like Kraken just as well. I thought Hydra largely because of the many heads the mythical monster had. Hence Hydra's missles.

What are you going to do for Amphibious landings or transport

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