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[Wrex]

Lead or Galena are the most powerful crushing things you are likely to have a good supply of. Otherwise, use bolts or arrows.

[Iosyn]

Why not use the corpses/bones of the previous victims?

For large bones and corpses this would be glorious. A single stack of elephant bone falling 1Z level can break a few bones. Of course, falling damage is calculated differently from flying objects. Also launching the skulls of the defeated towards the next invasion just reeks of delicious psychological warfare.

For the smaller ones it would probably be better to carve them into bone arrows and stick those in the minecarts, as it looks like they would act as if fired from a bow.

Currently my main 3-wide trade entrance is covered by 3 minecart cannons filled with galena and misc trap components but I'm wondering if it's possible to have the entrance 2 or 3Z levels high, so I can have the minecarts fire over a nice little array of ballistae-- but that looks as if all the shot would scatter over the heads of the enemy, instead of in the heads of the enemy.
Looks like further testing and experimentation is required.

First test fire of the standard configuration:
Woodcutter ignored path restriction during testing.
Lost one arm and beheaded by a flying -iron serrated disc-. He's smeared across the entrance as a reminder to others-- and since it's so effective it seems that I don't need a militia captain anyway.

Also it seems that having the depot too close is a bad idea. Shotgunned the caravan and my broker.

[Hyndis]

Bones are too valuable for that. I have an automatic quantum stockpile at the end of the rail line leading from my butchery area to my workshops. Then I decorate things with the bones of slain enemies.

[Iosyn]

Fair enough, I usually use them as decoration too most of the time.

Hey hyndis check out the Dwarven Perpetual Minecart grinder thread. There's a great design for a linear accelerator on there. Simple and sweet-- and so effective. I'm using 10Z falls at the moment until I can get this new system integrated.

[Hyndis]

I did see the linear accelerator design, and it is quite intriguing.

It also looks likes you cannot stack them side by side. You need a space between them, so you can't have a wall of flying carts of doom, there would be a gap between them.

If you install fortifications at the end of the rail, the fortifications will stop the cart cold, but the contents of the cart will fly out, through the fortifications. This gives a nice shotgun pattern and should make up for lack of full coverage of the railguns.

[Iosyn]

indeed, the 2 tile width of it could proclude easy stacking...
but if you used a layered design such as

+..................... +WWWWWWWWW
+WWWWWWWW.=LLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL=A__
=LLLLLLLLLLLLLLL===============A__
and then a third one behind that-===A__

you could still get 3 minecarts side-by-side to shotgun across a 3-wide corridor.
However this would take up a lot more space, and I'm not sure how much acceleration the second and third rails would lose.

Alternatively the third rail could be a South/East Line, so only the middle rail would lose however many tiles of acceleration due to friction.

[Hyndis]

3 tiles wide is a bit cramped for an entrance corridor. I prefer 5 tiles wide so its nice and roomy.

That would allow for the installation of 3 railguns pointing down the corridor, which should be enough of a shot pattern if they're loaded before being fired.

Alternatively, using retractable bridges could turn that into just a 1 tile wide corridor, then the railgun cannot miss because everyone is walking single file over a narrow ledge. Bonus points if the ledge is over a 30z level drop.

[Gentlefish]

However this would take up a lot more space, and I'm not sure how much acceleration the second and third rails would lose.

Alternatively the third rail could be a South/East Line, so only the middle rail would lose however many tiles of acceleration due to friction.

Why not just drop the third one back to the position of the first? Then you'd only lose the little power on the second one and none on the third.

[Iosyn]

However this would take up a lot more space, and I'm not sure how much acceleration the second and third rails would lose.

Alternatively the third rail could be a South/East Line, so only the middle rail would lose however many tiles of acceleration due to friction.

Why not just drop the third one back to the position of the first? Then you'd only lose the little power on the second one and none on the third.

Ah, my apologies that was what I was trying to say.
This is a condensed version, the real one would be much longer, maybe 10 tiles of acceleration each.

............+WWWWW
+WWWW=LLLLLLLLL==A_
=LLLLLLL==========A_
+..........=TTTTTTT==A_
............+WWWWW

W- wall
= - Track
A - Ramp down to target zone
L - North track turn
T - South Track turn
+ - Minecart loading access
.  - Stockpiles/ safe walkspace

So in this situation only the second rail would only lose however many tiles worth of acceleration due to friction and it's nice and compact.

Also Hyndis I know what you mean-- but I only tend to use the main access to allow traders into some measure of safety-- the only surface dwelling dorfs I have tend to be woodcutters, the odd fisherman and the occasional starving herbalist. Lined with cage and weapon traps and an emergency drawbridge by the Depot that locks off access.

Combined with that I like a shorter 1 tile wide windy labyrinth trap corridor that forces them to dodge into open air while also being shot at by marksdorfs-- those that fall to their doom are encased in either cage traps or flooded. The whole top trap floor is linked to a destructible support incase of severe emergencies FUN.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Recently the dodgy-shooty-fally room failed me in spectacular manner when a bloody flying syndrome FB dropped in to say hello. >"<  On the plus side, future forts will have the ceiling supported as well-- and possibly tamed GCS.