[Ogre] Re: Ogre-list Digest, Vol 13, Issue 1

[White Rat]

On Wed, 1 Jun 2005 ogre-list-request at sjgames.com wrote:

> 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.)

An OGRE's survival depends on its acting with reflexes and decisions 
faster than all the canned meat trying to take it down, not just its 
biphase carbide armor. And we have plenty of fluff that points towards 
humans in the same force being reluctant to get close to active OGREs, and 
towards OGREs making combat decisions that are based on the objective, not 
preservation of friendlies that might get underfoot.

>> 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.)

Ah, actually we've built a great many magnetic accelerators now. The 
technology has been well-enough explored that it's been part of commuter 
trains for around a decade, possibly more. Hold a magnet up to another 
magnet in such a way that they repel each other. Feel that resistance? 
Yes, Pinky. The laws of Thermodynamics don't go away just because magnetic 
fields are involved...Quite the contrary! Any linear accelerator (railgun, 
coilgun, etc.) that thrusts an object one direction is subject to an equal 
moment of acceleration along the opposite vector to that taken by the 
propelled object. If you'd like to see better information on the energies 
involved, look up the Pegasus coilgun project. 30-mike, three meters long, 
best shots ranging around ~2500m/second.