Sea Ogre

[piningforthefjords]

transport and a GEV type unit that could operate on sea as well as land.

I think your unit designs are original and well thought out. I especially like the subs!

I take it if a sub overruns another unit, it no longer is silent?

[piningforthefjords]

Perhaps -

A speedy torpedo boat, that is weak defensively but also enjoys a doubled offense in overruns (torpedos).

2/1 (doubled in overruns)
D2
M5

Maybe it's a hydrafoil?

D1, M6??

[piningforthefjords]

One other quick note - hull units.

In Ogre/GEV, an Ogre can still ram an opponent after it is degunned. You will need to decide if this is the case with the cyberships. Ramming on the sea seems unlikely, no?

If they cannot ram, then after being degunned they will never attract another shot.

Or you can drastically lower the hull units, to make going for a sinking a plausable choice.

[HammerSlammer]

I had a thought yesterday, I like the idea of patrol boats (or torpedo boats) Piningforthefjords, and especially the hull points. The one thing that occured to me is this

Submarines are weapons that really on stealth. they are virtually invisible until they fire or they surface. (Im an ex-sailor so I know a bit on it) how are you going to have that represented? that's the part that gets tricky. Unless the detection technology has advanced to the point where submarines are easily detected.

[Rolando]

I like the idea of the naval thing, specially subs, but I also doubt that it is feasible, in the OGRE setting the vehicles use detection devices that know where you are even across mountains and the horizon, how can water be a cover.

Weapons can not hit you because of the intervening water, only heavy missiles (howitzers and OGRE missiles), but are slowed and easiers to shoot down, but again, concussion is increased under water and unless the sub is a cybersub it will have some internal pressure to mantain, a hard thing near an underwater nuclear explosion.

and again there are the infantry that can overrun you at leisure (if they are near). So they can be used as inteligent deept charges transported on fast hover vehicles.

So, the thing is: OGRE Subs must be like the OGRE Ninja to hide, not just underwater.

[Corbeau]

I'm glad to see input and enthusiasm here. I'm really busy right now though, so comments & work on this project is limited (sorry Tristan - though the counters might need revision or additions anyway since there seems to be some interest).

For transports, I hadn't come up with a design yet. It's obvious that I'd have to though. My basic idea would be a M3 D2 ship (that mounts a laser for protection and support? - an idea anyway) that can disembark ground units into adjacent hexes. I'd think that transports would be conventional units rather than Cyberships simply because they lose a lot of the Ogre toughness by having to transport squishy human ground forces.

As to sub stealth, I'd think that they would be equipped with massive amounts of electronic warfare (they'd have to be). The passive/active system is supposed to show this - when running max EW they're hard to hit (not impossible at all though!) yet when they reveal themselves they are a sitting duck. The idea, naturally, is to kill the target with your first shot. Tristan, on subs & overruns, my idea was to have the sub stay passive until it had actually fired. That would mean that it has a real chance to survive overrunning something, and so would let the unit fill a similar design niche that infantry used to hold in Ogre.

Of course, it might be better to just use the restrictions on shooting at underwater Ogres for passive subs instead. The more that I think about it, the more that I like it. I also think that Cybersubs make a lot of sense due to the pressure issue that Rolando mentioned. I just haven't gotten around to designing any.

Moving on to torpedo boats, I actually had torpedo frigates in my original batch of counters (pulled in favor of subs). They were D4 M3 6/2 units. Rather than be fast, they were designed to be tough enough to reach close range. I still feel right about pulling them in favor of subs to fill the same role (though I also am slightly dubious about conventional subs in terms of fluff - I just felt that it'd be cool to have them). As for swarms of fast units, remember that I expect GEVs to be a prominant player in Ogreverse naval combat. Recall that a GEV is effectively a D2 M5/4 2/2 unit that can also travel on land if need be. We don't really need another unit to fill a narrow version of that role (and if you want cheap units for overrun combat, look no further than the good 'ol LGEV).

On Cyberships and ramming, yes, I would allow 'em to ram. Come on, how realistic is it for an Ogre to ram a speeding GEV anyway? Yet it happens. Why? Because having huge robotic units running over the puny mortals that get in its way is fun. And that's what a game should boil down to in my mind - fun. That said, I expect that hull will need work in the future for each Kraken; getting the cyberships to work well is something that I think will require extensive playtesting.

[JAW]

Sea ogres could as well be big GEWs (coelecantnths or whatewer they'we called) with capability to go submarine when needed...

Ther could also be early cyberships that carry a human crew with addition to an AI - maybe not too efficient but the nawy has traditions you know and a ship with AI _and_ human crew is just cool..

[Corbeau]

I recall an article somewhere from official sources that a GEV-type Ogre would be just too vulnerable to be feasable, so I'm sticking to that. And while there could be Cyberships with human crew, it would be a layer of unneeded complexity (heck, the conventional ships probably have powerful AI components - just like conventional tanks do in the Ogreverse).

[dylango]

Hi Corbeau,

Funny that this stuff should be coming about just at the time when Tom's Ogre map maker is finally available. These two things were/are probably on the top of every Ogre fan's wish list. The map maker is going to be fantastic for making cool island, bay and fjord laden coast-lines to fight over.

Some thoughts:

I agree with Tristan that the ship stats you present are well thought out, though I might suggest perhaps bumping their movement down by 1 across the board. I realize that it is technically feasible that they could move this fast; but to preserve a naval feel it might be better to have ships not move as fast or faster than land based vehicles.

Even though you convincingly argue that the naval units would be small by today's standards, I imagine these units would still be huge compared to land vehicles. The upside of this is that they would be able to carry really cool weapons such as a Laser, or a Laser Tower (mounted in a destroyer's mast let's say). They would be made doubly effective in that out on the water there's nothing to block line of sight. Also for these vehicles, carrying a few cruise missiles becomes a viable, though expensive, option. Another good argument for ship mounted laser systems.

Lastly for no other reason than I think it would be dead cool, giant GEV type landing craft (though this is the way modern landing craft design is headed anyway... for more see here ).

BTW check out the pics at the bottom of the above link for an idea about the sheer size of these GEVs. The russian have an even bigger
monster (of course). Ironic that the russion GEV looks like something akin to a Combine design whereas the USN one looks Paneuro :P

[dylango]

Russion !? wow. one too many Guiness at lunch it would seem. Appologies to all the Neo-Tsarist revolutionaries out there... you know who you are.