A (Sept.) 1985 Yamaha MSX presented with a mouse – a rare conjunction mayhaps. Giving me Amiga tank mouse vibes. The Amiga 1000 came out in July, and originally with only 256KB RAM iirc. Its sound and graphical chipset was more impressive than MSX2 I'd say.
Looks like around 200K¥ for the bundle below. Hard to guess what that is in modern money since something happened to the yen in 1985 (the Plaza Accord).
Epson handheld computer HC-20, from Technopolis #7 1983.
Spotting a modem (top), mini tape(right), receipt style printer (left), and LCD display (center). The computer is a separate module to the modem and side peripheral boxes (cables, paper and a NiCd battery?).
@nyrath Those were pretty fun. I was reading the old Starsiege Tribes lore and in that universe they have a bunch of laws for the nanotech nanites just to avoid problems.
The First Limit: Control by Man
The Second Limit: Confine the Reach
The Third Limit: Confine the Generation
The Fourth Limit: Strike Not the Living
The Fifth Limit: Destroy Mutations
Ogre variants, haphazard sizes with some calculations. When it comes to soil mechanics, apparently it really helps for tanks to have malleable treads, with suspension and such, so I gave mine 6 tilt-able track modules with 4 tracks each. Even so, pressure is more than 2x that of a modern tank. Possibly an Ogre might need rockets or even nukes for glassing terrain to get out of situations.
Since Ogres are somewhat nuke resistant, maybe they could do small nuclear powered jumps, like Orion rockets on steroids (at the cost of taking some thread damage). Another idea is taking in river and sea water, superheat it in the fusion plant or whatever, and use as reaction mass.
For reference, Starship is 5000 tons (only 300t actual ship!) and an Ogre is probably half or less.
@isaackuo Are Ogres even serviced by humans in the field though? I could imagine dumping entire track modules into repair pits. In the field, maybe individual damaged tracks can be let loose or retracted in some way. Driving on 5 modules might also be possible.
If I read the lore correctly, Ogre vehicles in general aren't serviceable to begin with as parts are cast directly into the solid BPC armour. So they're worse than Macs.
@nyrath I guess if you have a fantastic material like BPC already; an abundance of "clean nukes"; no inhibitions, it would be tempting to just go for it. But you'd need a way to take off and detonate a bit away from the bottom in order to not splay out the tracks with a radial blast... bore nukes detonating underground, perhaps? Then hefty track suspension can partially work like on the Orion.
I'm imagining a scene where an Ogre, supposedly blocked by mountains, comes boom-boom-booming over.
More Ogre stuff. Not sure what the scale are, since it varies a bit between drawings, minis and 3D models... as do the designs of the side silhouettes and drawings. Apparently there are ninjas in the game. I imagine they're only useful for taking out other infantry, and maybe some kind of OGRE sabotage with sticky bombs?
Added a Stridsvagn 103 GEV for fun. Rifle is from a single drawing, as is the antennas, Winchell Chung did much of the original art back in the '70s.
I remember when I was a kid in the late 70s I had this... kit of a hover ferry... maybe a Hover Lloyd? I think hovercraft were more in the public eye then. Probably where the GEV's came from, if I were to guess. So nothing sci-fi antigrav, just propellers and rubber rings. On the cover they have a lot of guns: mother tank side sponsons; flak turret on the top; a front cannon. Seemed a bit much so I gave mine smoke launchers on the sides. Their stats are nearly the same as light tanks, regardless
@nyrath I could see these being vulnerable to small arms fire and shrapnel, but thinking about it, maybe the skirt is compartmentalized, and constantly inflating.
I wonder if they get stuck going over a trench on land. Some WW1 tanks carried a little bridge or logs they could toss out under the tracks... maybe something like that could work.
@isaackuo Thinking about the issue with trenches, a good design might be a tripod or quadcopter/drone... but one which stays stuck to the ground. If the arms are movable then it could have constant ground contact pretty much, and could perhaps even walk.
O O
X
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Otherswise, it might be possible to use a continuous skirt but with compartments for tilting.
@fnordius@nyrath I really need to read up on the setting. Sounds like it's closer to the Rifts TTRPG then, if they can shrug off nukes and whatnot?
Visually the units in Ogre are all quite unique and not just standard tanks with some cool panel lines, so that alone is interesting enough to work with when doodling.
Apparently the Ogres were maybe going to be spheres early on... something which the Heavy Object animé later went all in for.
I don't know if these would have whipple shields or panel lines. The lore apparently states that stuff is often cast in solid bi-phase carbide blocks along with cabling and devices. So maybe no repair hatches and modules. But if BPC has a density of 1.55, then it might make sense to leave some air pockets if stuff needs to float. Separate layers/scales of BPC might also make sense if it tears and unravels as suggested.
Some rough calculations for Ogre length, assuming a cube to model ratio of 2.5 (estimated by sloppy clay model, but the ratio is usually 1.75-3 for chubby things) and a density of carbon fiber, 1.55. I think tanks have a density of around 1, with most other vehicles being below, towards 0.1, mainly due to crew and cargo pockets (AI Ogres might be more solid, but overboard density might make them sink).
Added a little Vickers light tank Mk5 for scale reference, and rescaled some stuff.
I think I'd prefer for the vehicles to be kind of normal-sized so the Ogre appears larger, since that's what some of the old art did, with the light and heavy tank parked in front of an Ogre. Also, normal-sized tanks gives a point of reference and it's the Ogre that's the star of the show. I do like that square turret superheavy tank though.
Do tank turrets make sense in Ogre with only one target far away?