[Ogre] Re: Ogre-list Digest, Vol 12, Issue 17

[Chris French]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: <ogre-list-request at sjgames.com>
> Message: 1
> Date: Mon, 30 May 2005 15:22:15 -0700 (PDT)
> From: White Rat <whiterat at bastet.org>
> Subject: [Ogre] Re: Ogre-list Digest, Vol 12, Issue 16
> Getting engineers to walk up to an active, live OGRE off the battlefield
> probably takes some doing. Getting them to walk up to that big a fire
> magnet in a hot zone, with the knowledge that yes, if it decides to move,
> and decides you are of less tactical importance than it is (which you
> likely are), it will crush you without a nanosecond's hesitation is a
> whole 'nother matter.

I suspect that if the OGRE in question decides to move, the engineers
will know (either via diagnostics, or the OGRE warning them) and
will be able to depart before getting run over. (It seems to me such a
program would be part-and-parcel of an OGRE's "friend or foe" sub-
routines, in fact.)

> If the OGRE is actually shooting and participating
> in combat, it'd take a very level-headed person to go near it, battlesuit
> or no, I'd say.

Between the mental conditioning mentioned in various bits of _O_
flavor text, and the number of 'bots involved in the process (just like
a Vulcan has its drones, so the Engineers have theirs -- the ENG
drones being too small to represent separately on the board), the
emotions of the ENG unit won't count for a lot, I think.

> Message: 2
> Date: Mon, 30 May 2005 22:27:15 -0400
> From: David Morse <dcmorse at gmail.com>
> Subject: [Ogre] 'hot' repairs
> "We're going to need drugs.  LOTS of drugs."

Oh, yeah -- forgot about the "combat pharmaceuticals". Thanks.

> Message: 4
> Date: Tue, 31 May 2005 10:17:08 +0100 (BST)
> From: "Gareth Owen" <glo at io.com>
> Subject: Re: [Ogre] Re: Ogre-list Digest, Vol 12, Issue 16
> The force is smoother and more spread out than a conventional weapon,
> but this is probably counteracted by the large size and high velocity
> of Ogre gauss shells.

Maybe. As there's no RL examples to work from, there's no way of
knowing how much recoil is affected. (I wouldn't think there would
be any, as the force "pushing" the round along the barrel isn't coming
from directly abaft the round, but from all around it -- most Gauss
weapon designs use a series of rings along the barrel, and use a
"conveyor-belt" method to pull/push the load along, so whatever
"recoil" there is doesn't project straight back.)

>
> As for rockets - have you ever seen pictures of an MLRS firing?

More than a few. :)

>Anything
> near the launcher is going to have severe problems from the exhaust
> venting over the vehicle - you just can't stand near them when they're
> launching.

We're talking folks in armored suits which can withstand near-miss
nuclear blasts; I doubt very seriously mere missile exhaust is going to
accomplish a whole lot.

>
> As I've broken cover, my real objection to engineers fixing tracks is that
> in the real world combat engineers and mechanical engineers are entirely
> different branches of service. That's not to say that in the Ogre world
> they might not have merged, but the skills are very different so it seems
> unlikely to say the least.

On this point, I agree fully. Big diff between "engineer" and "mech-
anic".

CF