Re: [ds] Ogres(was Re: Full Thrust...)

On Fri, 6 Nov 1998, David wrote:
> Brian Burger wrote:
> > On Wed, 4 Nov 1998, Rick Norman wrote:
> > > Watch a MkV (big,big, very big,)roll across the field
> > Actually, Ogres in DS2 tend to die.

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